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Ghost Stories

I am not a great believer in the paranormal. Sure, I believe people experience things they can't explain, and get scared. It's just that I don't necessarily believe the scary experience is caused by the spirit of a dead person or demon. Just because I can't explain something doesn't mean there isn't an explanation. Of course this view puts me in the same position as pretty much every ghost story protagonist, ever.

Not believing in ghosts has not prevented me from having ghostly experiences. Three, in fact, and I'll share them with you.

These stories are all set in the same place, the farm my grandparents used to own in the middle of the a forest in eastern Norway. It is fairly old, though I'm not entirely sure how old since I never paid any attention to the family history. It is also far between the farms, so you wouldn't hear the neighbours. It is not, however, the kind of place you would expect to be haunted. It always had a warm and welcoming atmosphere, since my grandparents were always warm and welcoming people, and no stranger was allowed to pass without entering the kitchen for a cup of coffee!

Footsteps in the Night

My first ghostly experience happened when I was a little girl. I had my own room on the 2nd floor of the house, while my grandparents slept in their downstairs bedroom. There was no one else staying there at the time. As it was late at night, and I was very young, I stayed up reading a book a long time after my grandparents had gone to bed. It was a quiet night, though probably some wind outside and typical natural sounds I cannot recall, and did not pay attention to. The book in question was one of those christian teen-targeted anti bullying stories, and quite forgettable.

I believe it was some time around 1-2 am when I heard footsteps coming from the room next to me, passing my door and continuing down the stairs. I heard the stairs creaking, as they often did due to their age. At the time I was slightly puzzled, but figured it was just my grandmother, as she had a habit of walking around the house at night. I couldn't figure out what she'd been doing upstairs this late though, and for some time too, as I hadn't heard anyone walk up the stairs since I 'went to bed'.

Then, some 10 minutes later, I heard footsteps again, this time coming up the stairs. I looked up from my book, as I was expecting my grandmother to ask me to turn the light off and go to sleep. As I heard the footsteps pass my door into the next room, I saw nothing. Not even a shadow. No one left that room for the rest of that night, and I never heard those footsteps again.

Checking up on us

As a teenager, I stayed at this farm for a week with a few friends to work in a nearby stable. As my (maternal) grandparents, who owned the farm, were away for the week, my (paternal) grandmother had agreed to stay there with us, since we were not yet old enough to be away for so long without adult supervision. She slept in the downstairs bedroom, while we all occupied the large room upstairs, across the hall from my bedroom.

We had a blast, enjoying our time there immensely, and at night we would do as young girls do; stay up chatting for a bit, then do individual stuff like listening to music, reading and writing diaries as it was getting late, occasionally looking up from whatever we were doing to share an interesting or funny quote, ask a question or talk about some newly discovered music. We always made sure to close the door properly, and kept the noise down to avoid disturbing my grandmother. One night, as we were doing this, all settled down in our own beds or mattresses, we all saw the door handle being pushed down slowly, and the door creaking as it was opened slightly. We were puzzled, as we assumed it was my grandmother checking up on us, so why wouldn't she make herself known, or close the door?

We asked her the next morning, and she assured us she had got an early night and never left her bedroom.

The Baby

About 7 years ago, I was staying at the farm with my horse Blaze, a couple of friends, and Gaz, my (now ex) boyfriend.

One night, we went out to check up on Blaze when we heard a baby crying. Confirming with each other that we all heard the same thing, we hurried inside, terrified. We knew there were no babies at the farm at that time, and if there was one visiting one of the neighbours, we would not have heard it. Furthermore, we all perceived the sound to come from the same place, an abandoned outhouse.

The next morning, still shaken, we decided to investigate. We climbed the ladder into the attic of the outhouse, where we thought the sound had come from. There, right underneath the window, there was an old cradle.

The 'Feminist' Reaction

As a rule, I am not one to worry much about excessively sexualized depictions of women. I tend to just accept it. Hell, I even enjoy dressing up once in a while, with the specific purpose of looking more attractive to my boyfriend. In short, I am a very, very bad feminist.

Therefore, I am quite amazed at my reaction when my boyfriend turns on his motorbike racing. What am I reacting to? The girls. Seriously. What do they do? A lot behind the scenes I hope, because all you ever see on screen is some lovely looking young ladies wearing as little as possible, whatever the weather, standing around with stiff, frozen smiles on their faces. This is what I don't care for. There is no way, in my wildest imaginations, I can come up with any reason, however far-fetched, for those outfits. They seem to be designed for the sole purpose of giving men something to look at. For some reason, that makes me uncomfortable.

Similar arguments could be made in media such as film and games, I suppose. Impractical 'armour' for female characters is, after all, not an uncommon issue. BUT in the darkest, wildest corner of my imagination that could be down to self-expression, or allow them to move freely, or something like that.  A female game/film character has to take some initiative to do what they do, so it is not such a leap to imagine they may have been the ones making bad choices in the wardrobe department, too.

So, to try to put my finger on exactly what makes me uncomfortable, hopefully without becoming an absolute hypocrite, I believe it might be this: the apparent lack of choice. When the sexy outfit looks like a uniform, and the wearer looks out of place or uncomfortable in the situation, something feels wrong and my feminist side wakes up for a minute to voice its disapproval before it goes back to sleep and I put on an outrageously impractical outfit for the task I'm about to undertake.

No, I always wear this when I paint. It makes me feel like a pin up-artist.

"I don't mind"

I have, at times, been accused of being indecisive.
It's true, I am.
Because most of the time, I don't mind.

Not only do I not have a strong opinion either way, I know that usually, the person I'm with does. Look, I can be quite stubborn. I'll fight my corner if I have to. I can also be terribly opinionated, and I find the idea of repeatedly sacrificing my own needs and desires to please others absolutely ridiculous. This is not why I sometimes have trouble making a decision about what to make for dinner.

I have trouble deciding what to make for dinner because I'm usually the least fussy eater in the room, and being told I can make 'anything' is quite a challenge when I have to consider other people's cravings and preferences that they won't tell me about.

And just one thing that annoys me beyond belief:
Saying It's up to you, only to either complain about the decision, or refuse to go with it.

Seriously.

If you don't mind, you don't mind.