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FIRST GHOST HUNTING EXPERIENCE / [DATE] / ONE

THE FIRST TIME that I went ghost hunting with ‘REAL’ equipment was when I was 16 years old. Had a grandpa living in town who had a little collection of dowsing rods and got given a pair for my birthday. Told me that they’d work better than a new set since they knew him. We got along pretty good. I stayed with him a lot.

I SPENT A couple weeks getting used to them before thinking about anything serious. Standard fair- determining which motion meant ‘YES’ and which meant ‘NO’ (CROSSED FOR YES, OPEN FOR NO. THAT PAIR WAS VERY CONSISTENT), asking if I could dowse that day and at that location, walking around and asking simple questions. There was a lot of hesitation at the start. Swaying, on the verge of either gesture, for some amount of time before settling on one. Took a bit for both of us to settle down some. I didn’t feel anything but awkward for most of it. Didn’t get the importance of staying relaxed and centered yet.

I WAITED UNTIL a weekend that I was sent off to my grandpa’s to try out something more in depth than ‘AM I CURRENTLY FACING THE HOUSE?’. He went to bed, every night, at 7:30, and he lived a short walk from the local graveyard. Was a stupid choice for a first try, but I was a stupid kid. Poked my head into my grandpa’s room around 10:00 to check that he was asleep and then went down there. Made sure to lock the door behind me.

I DID NOT try to break in. I’d only ever hopped chain fences- the sort that had footholes built in and everything- and the gate was locked real sturdy. I had thought about it, though. Again, stupid kid. Ended up setting up next to the fence at the backside, where the few mausoleums sat together, and brought out the rods. I’ve got a transcript from that night, because I’d brought a notebook with me and hadn’t yet figured out that putting down the rods between every question and response was a good way to get nowhere. Notebook ended up being a companion for a while. Compendium of stuff that I held onto. It went like this:

SMITH: CAN YOU SHOW ME WHICH POSITION YOU USE FOR ‘YES’?

RODS: [CROSSED- YES]

SMITH: CAN YOU SHOW ME WHICH POSITION YOU USE FOR ‘NO’?

RODS: [OPEN- NO]

SMITH: CAN I DOWSE HERE TONIGHT?

(HERE, I MADE a note : ‘SLIGHT HESITATION’. A line down, another: ‘ME TOO, SISTER’. I was trying to be funny.)

RODS: [CROSSED- YES]

SMITH: SHOULD I DOWSE HERE TONIGHT?

‘LONGER HESITATION’

RODS: [OPEN- NO]

(I DID NOT have the opening questions figured out by that point. It goes:

MAY I?- Asking for permission.

CAN I?- Asking if I am prepared.

SHOULD I?- Asking if it is appropriate.)

SMITH: OKAY. SORRY. GOODNIGHT.

I HAD NOT asked ‘SHOULD I?’ during any of my practice runs. I remember the reality of what I was doing- true communications with the deceased- hitting me there. I wasn’t asking a pair of sticks questions I already knew the answers to. I was talking to people. The dowsing rods were just the medium. Had an English teacher who liked to get asinine over the difference between ‘CAN I?’ and ‘MAY I?’- and I thought of her when the rods were swaying, a slow side-to-side, before answering my first question. Realized that if I was talking to people, there might be someone like her talking back.

BEFORE THAT, MY entire experience with ghost hunting had been largely negligible. Watching videos online and asking questions into dark rooms expecting some full body apparition to answer back. Was a subtlety to the rods which made the whole concept of it settle in my head. My grandpa had dowsing rods for the novelty and I’d just seen pictures on hunting websites that I would skim through, disappointed by the lack of any dramatics. Again (X2), stupid kid. I was impatient and callous. Took me awhile to get back out there and try anything more daring than the occasional ‘MAY I DOWSE HERE?’ in my grandpa’s backyard.