Being of Asian/Pacific Islander descent, being “superstitious” is probably second nature to me. I don’t travel without a rosary and/or a religious icon. Now, after having had it for 2 or 3 years, I also don’t like to travel without my silver Barong ring from Bali. The Barong is for protection. Sometimes I also wear jade for luck.
In addition to “requiring” those things, there are people and animals that I’ve been extremely close to. While living in Los Angeles for many years, I had two Chow Chows. The first one was a male who I named Kolohe Pea, but we lovingly referred to as Porky Pig. Although he lived with my Thai boyfriend and me, he was, without a doubt, MY dog! If put on the floor between us where both of us called him, he would always come to me. If my boyfriend and I fought and slept separately, Pea would sleep by me, whether it be in the bedroom or on the couch. I kissed him on his nose every morning before I went to work and told him to “Be good.” My boyfriend said that he would wait by the window for me every day until I got home from work. The first weekend that I left him to go on a short trip, he tore up the throw pillows on the couch – something he’d never touched before. My boyfriend said that he got upset when I didn’t come home, jumped on the couch and started ripping the throw pillows up! When I got back from my trip, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He would sit ON TOP of my feet, as though he didn’t want me to go anywhere. Pea was my love; I couldn’t wait to get home and play with him every day. Around the time he was two, my Thai boyfriend and I had broken up. I had another boyfriend, who stayed with me part of the time. One day when I was at work, I was reading Through the Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King on my lunch break. There’s a part in the book where a boy stones a dog to death. I felt incredibly sad after reading it, yet went back and read it again. Right after I read it a second time, my boyfriend called to say that Pea had gotten out of the apartment, tried to run across the street and gotten hit by a car. He died immediately. I was devastated and went home right away. I must have cried for a week straight. Yet during that time, Pea was in the apartment with me. I could see the vague outline of him sitting in the hallway looking at me. After a week, he went away. Then I dreamt that he was up high somewhere and kept crying because he couldn’t get to me. I couldn’t be without him, so bought another Chow Chow puppy to ease the pain. That in itself is another story. I’d chosen a male puppy, the runt of the litter and already had his name picked out, Kanoa. The breeders kept him for a few more weeks to finish giving him his puppy shots. The day that I went to pick him up, he was killed by someone’s hunting dog who’d jumped into their yard and killed several puppies. I ended up taking home a female Chow Chow puppy, as there were no more male ones left. I named her Anela, since my then-boyfriend’s name was Angel. Anela’s personality was the complete opposite of Pea’s. Although she loved me, she’d take off with anyone. She wasn’t quite well behaved and calm as Pea had been. Instead, she was a little terror. I had her for several years before my job relocated me to San Francisco. Rather than bringing her to San Francisco, I left her with a friend in Southern California who had often puppysat her and adored her. When I would go back to Los Angeles, I would see her. One day I had the strangest feeling. I called my friend and asked her, “How’s Anela? Did something happen?” “How did you know?!” she wondered in surprise. Anela had lived to maybe 16 years old. She could barely see or walk any more, so my friend had had to put her down less than a week before my call. We commiserated and cried over the phone together, but neither of us have replaced her. It wasn’t the time.
Some people believe in ghosts and others don’t. I’m one of the former. New Orleans is one of the most haunted cities in the United States. The first time I ever stayed at The Pontchartrain Hotel out in the Garden District, I stayed alone. I was only there for one night, en route from either Chicago or Atlanta to Los Angeles. It was either the end of summer or the very beginning of fall, but temperatures were still extremely hot. When I checked into The Pontchartrain, they upgraded me to a suite as they weren’t very busy that night. The Carol Channing Suite was bigger than my one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. I had a small kitchen, a large dining room/living room area with an armoire and T.V., a bathroom and a medium bedroom with an armoire and a T.V. After going out that evening to the French Quarter, then taking a cab back to the Garden District, I tried to sleep. While laying in bed, I had the creepiest feeling that someone was staring and me, as well as about to touch me. It bothered me so much that I opened the bedroom door, turned on the light AND the T.V. Yet I still couldn’t sleep. I finally went into the living room, bundled myself up on the couch, turned on the lights in there and turned on the T.V. in there. Even then, it took quite awhile for me to fall asleep. When I finally DID sleep, I was awakened by rattling at the door, as if someone were trying to open it. I nearly had a heart attack, but was too afraid to even get up off of the couch to go to the phone and call the front desk. After a few minutes, it stopped. When I checked out in the morning, I asked the doormen if anyone had said that the hotel was haunted. They said they KNEW it was haunted, and that people often either saw ghosts in the room or felt a cold breeze as a presence brushed past them. They asked which room I’d been in. When I told them, they said that NO ONE had been on the floor that night, except me!
I currently live in an older apartment building, which many believe used to be a boarding house. One of my former roommates insisted there’s an evil presence in the laundry room. Many people say that they can feel a presence directly in front of our apartment door. I, myself, have a spirit in my bedroom. It’s a man and he comes to visit me probably every year and a half to two years. I can’t SEE him, but I definitely feel him. He’s not scary or evil, but he always wants to lay in the bed next to me. One night I could feel “someone” standing on the side of the bed. I was thinking to myself that it was my boyfriend and wondering why he was just standing there and not getting in. Then I realized that my boyfriend hadn’t spent the night with me. It was the spirit. He crawled over me and lay next to me, as usual. He always touches me, too, but not in THAT way. He sprawls either his arm or leg across me, lays that way for a few minutes, then goes away. Most people think I’m crazy, but one of my friends believes me now. He was in my room watching a movie, half asleep. I was in the room of one of my roommates talking to her. When I went back to my room, my friend asked “Did you come into the room earlier?” No. Why?” He said that someone or something had come into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He insisted and swore that it was true, in case I didn’t believe him. He was surprised when I said that I knew, then went on to explain about the spirit. I also told him that Polynesian people often have an aumakua that looks after them, though I don’t really believe that that particular spirit is my aumakua.
Even in Bali, the spirits came to me. It was my first time staying at the Green Field Bungalows in Ubud. I had one of the cheaper rooms on the far side of the property. I was on the second floor with a balcony. After having a massage and dinner, I went back to the room to sleep. Once again, I had a strange feeling and it took me awhile to drift off. When I did, I was awakened by a spirit shaking me and a little boy’s voice saying over and over “Play with me!” I said to him, in my mindspeak, “Now?! Why do you want me to play with you now? I’m tired!” With that, he disappeared.
Had I been drinking heavily at any of those times? No, not at all; not even in New Orleans. I’m just putting this out here to relate some of my experience before I forget.
Is there someone or something that has come in contact with YOU?!
