that's what she said

this week my favorite professor described the origins of Halloween as a pagan holiday, situated at the end of the harvest season. for those who celebrated, it was a form of ancestor worship - a recognition that the death part of the life cycle was upon them. they believed that the boundary between the realm of the living and the dead was especially thin during this time, allowing passage between realms.

i realized yesterday that much of this week has been just that for me. i've been moving from one task to another, unable to shake the feeling of being displaced in time. past lives have surfaced of their own volition; recollections of the fictions i've called myself, memories unburdened by nostalgia.

i've smelled the late September air of Chapel Hill in 1997, i've felt the January dread of New Brunswick in 2002, i've heard the October sunshine of Lake Lure in 2006. this morning i even felt the November mania of Manhattan, when i had just returned from Kansas City.

i was on my way to Paris, standing blindfolded on the edge of the millennial abyss, wearing a Cheshire smile and oblivious to the portent descending all around me.

i've somehow channeled those people these past days, and last night i went to visit Jache at his new apartment and tell him these things. we stood in the parking lot at midnight and he spoke of circles. i didn't realize it until this morning, but this strange feeling has been just that. i've been sleeping less and dreaming more these past weeks, and i cannot name the reason for the change. but i've been here before.

we cannot help but live with the selves we were, and i do not know if the realms have gotten closer or if the boundary has merely grown porous. i suppose it does not matter. either way, i have lived my whole life straddling worlds, and i used to wish i could simply fall on one side or the other. (a black bird once said nevermore). i've been unknowingly exploring the difference between channeling these ancestors and being possessed by them... perhaps i'm becoming accustomed to the liminal.