07: personal ghost stories 👻
what's haunting you? (october 2020)
Iteration #7 of this monthly letter full of feelings.
This issue's theme is: ☼ personal ghost stories ☼
I’ve been thinking about my life as a scary movie and what the monster would be; it’s been so many things in my head over the years: a haunted house full of spirits, a babadook in the basement, a demon lurking in the closet, a broken funhouse mirror of abusive relationships. Lately I’ve been wondering if it’s just me — if I’m holding all of these things inside of me and they’re the makings of a monster nesting inside me, waiting (here we are again at Bly Manor, my favorite conversation topic lately). They're the scary scenes I see behind my eyes when I’m trying to fall asleep. They’re the the anxiety stealing my breath and jolting me up in the middle of the night gasping for air. The hyper vigilance of always looking for ghosts that aren’t there. The fear of waiting for myself to break, not ever fully trusting my own perception of reality. After seeking out relationships for so long that made me feel like they were the only voices I could trust; the "I know you better than you know yourself" and "that's exactly the type of person you are" and of course the one who actually told me I was evil. I broke that cycle, but I’m still haunted by it. I work every day to live a life that’s aligned with who I want to be and who I believe I am, but those insidious creeping thoughts about my rotten, monstrous insides always find a way in. Even if I know they’re not real.
So what if that’s the scariest part? That there isn’t a monster at all (not even me). That I’m never going to go full horror movie and I’m always just going to have this grief and trauma echoing inside me (it’s like... duh! I’ve been reading the body keeps the score for almost a year and I logically understand that trauma lives inside your body and muscles and bones like a ghost but it just clicked for me).
In therapy on thursday, we talked about the ghost stories in my life and the heightened adrenaline I routinely feel when falling asleep. Probably the reason for the scary thoughts I have when going to sleep and the avoidance I encounter every night. My therapist reassured me that my ex and the feelings and thoughts he made me experience were real, the fear my family felt without my dad in the house was real, and the fear of losing my stepdad is real now.
WHAT'S HAUNTING YOU?
I've been photographing my stepdad a lot, and I always did, but now that he's sick it's a whole new thing. I just got back a bunch of negatives and I'll be combing through contact sheets for a while before anything comes together. I'm still figuring out what all of the work I've been making of my family and home in Pennellville has meant up until this point. I think all of this time here will illuminate something. My friend said it's like a residency being here, and that's what I'm trying to imagine it as.
When someone asks "is your stepdad out of the hospital?" it feels like when I was younger and friends would ask if my stepdad was living in the house again, or if my "parents" were back together. It's this messy combination of anger, frustration, shame, and guilt, and probably a bunch of other emotions I haven't named yet. I just want to scream "DOES IT FUCKING MATTER?" He's always in and out, on and off with my mom, drinking for every minute I've known him and now suddenly sober. It's just hard to commit to an answer, like yes, sure, he's out. Does it matter?
So, my stepdad is in the hospital again now. It feels like a normal cycle now: chemo, oxygen levels drop, blood transfusion, can't breath, hospital stay, then home for a while, which is it's own of lows and highs. Whenever he's home though, I feel like I get into this comfort zone of living day to day as if things are normal. Then, whenever he starts to talk softer and gentler, stop to catch his breath after walking from the couch to the fridge, or ask for an extra blanket, I'm reminded that my body exists in a state of panic. I just usually find ways to slip into disassociation. To not always be gasping for breath or talking from the top of my throat – that spot that tightens when you're trying not to cry. I remember living from this place during most of my life, feeling haunted by the constant existential panic of knowing how close we are to dying just by being alive.
ONE MORE MAYBE CRAZY THING
I was trying to find a funny way to tell an *actual* ghost story about the summer of 2010 when I was living at home for the summer after freshman year of college, somehow surviving a wild relationship that feels like a ghost story in itself. You know that scene in Bly Manor where Peter is yelling at his girlfriend about "putting things in her mouth?" I think that *actually* happened to me, maybe word for word? Anyway, that summer was a whirlwind of unbelievable experiences, one of them being a series of weeks where he convinced me, my brother, and my mom that our house was haunted. There was one night where he and I were screaming at the top of our lungs and nobody could here us (the house is small – my brother was asleep in his room maybe 10 feet away). He convinced me there was an evil presence in the house and put his grandmother's rosary on my neck. As soon as it rested on my chest, the necklace snapped and the beads fell around my body (eventually he gave up on the house being haunted and decided he was better off convincing me that I, myself, was haunted). Then, after a few weeks of making us believe and see things that weren't there (I mean... the weren't there, right?), he told me to stop talking about it because I was giving the evil presence power. (Typical abuser shit: don't discuss the gaslighting you're enduring, or else you'll uncover it's gaslighting). Right before the Time Where I Was No Longer Aloud to Speak of the Haunting, my friends Kelsey & Emily came over to visit me for just a few hours. I told them the stories while he wasn't around. They witnessed it and gave it power, but also gave me power and made me feel brave for just one night. It was a glimpse into a brighter reality for just a moment (I'd get there again, just not anytime soon). Later on, Emily sent me this message on tumblr and I've kept it in a folder on my desktop. It seems relevant to all of it, still. Maybe I've always been working through the same things.
“for bridget badore, you are too cool and make me feel cool too even though i know im not as cool as you though maybe knowing you makes me feel more cool. time is something like loss and its guiding our days. no true artist is ever happy, someone once said something like life is not here to help along the art, it’s the other way around. i think it was stephen king. when i first went to your home, i felt who are are anew. after that night, i described you to my friends as “haunted,” but i think in the best way that can be. but what you do is not dark, you are not dark, you glow and are a flashlight of consciousness, even when you’re sad and silent, you work in light, you admire and capture it, you dance around it in your nakedness and invite others to join you in it naked or not, in the light for once, not the dark, no closed door bedroom shade drawn windowless brain of a room, so really it’s a haunting that makes people unafraid, makes people pretty, like a pearl prynne kind of thing, takes the ghosts out of the mind and right there vis-a-vis, boob to boob, soul before soul, makes people immortal and living, even if they age or die, that is talent and that is art and that is you."
FINALLY, THESE OPEN STUDIO PHOTOS!
I had an open studio session back in February and I had been avoiding scanning & retouching this film, probably because I was sad that I knew I wouldn't be able to do something like this again (I will try to do a digital one but of course it's not the same). I remember feeling like I was really starting to "figure out what I was doing." I had done four open studio sessions at that point, and each one felt like I was gaining confidence and clarity about who I was as a photographer and how I wanted to make people feel. I want people to feel seen and celebrated, able to be honest and willing to be present with me. I'm still fumbling around on the wording. It's all in my head floating around and I just have to
I started this project in February of 2019 and it was loosely just an opportunity to invite people I like into a studio space and play around and see what I'm drawn to and run with it. I invited folks to be vulnerable with me and share themselves and witness my vulnerability stumbling around my own creative ideas that were stuck in my insecure bones afraid of rejection or whatever.
You can see the bare bones (shall I say skeleton?) of this project slowly coming together on my website here. Eventually I want to make some kind of book and include a collaborative element with each of the subjects. Maybe in another year or two after we're able to do things like this again, maybe. Maybe it'll be on indefinite hold. Anyway, if this is something that deeply interests you, whether you want to be photographed someday when it happens again, or help me articulate what it'll be, or just talk about the the vulnerability of photographing and being photographed, please don't hesitate to respond to this email. ✿
FOUR THINGS I LOVED THIS MONTH
☁︎ Anyway, I love you, lmk if you want to share a personal ghost story with me or you just want to talk about your feelings with me. bye! ☁︎
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This newsletter was written from the Onundagaonoga (Onondaga) & Haudenosaunee territory To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰
