THE GHOST OF GIRLFRIEND'S PAST
In early 1961, I was newly married, barely pregnant with my only child, and living in Miami, Florida. I had married unwisely. Although my husband was a brilliant young lawyer, Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, he was a bonafide Bill Clinton, in that he could not be true to one woman to save his life.

One night, he was gone as usual, and I had called his office, the Law Library, all his friends, the hospitals and everywhere I thought he might be. I could not find him anywhere, and it was midnight.

I went to bed and was listening for the crunch of gravel on the driveway, hoping he would drive in. I was also scouring my memory, trying to come up with somewhere else I could look for him. I could think of nothing.

Then in resignation and total exhaustion, I gave up.

Immediately, I felt myself leave my body and fly through the air to Hibiscus Island, an up-scale community that was a suburb of Miami. I found myself standing on the sidewalk across the street from an apartment house. The building was blond brick and there were huge glass doors nearing taking up the front of the first floor. I could see through the glass to the interior lobby. There were mail boxes on the wall to the left through the doors, and a narrow stair to the upper floors on the left past the mail boxes. There was a rather unique carpet on the floor - black or very dark blue with large yellow and gold tropical flowers with green leaves on it. The doors to the individual apartments were spaced down the right side of the hall.

Immediately, I was across the street, inside the glass doors and floating down a short hall where I came to rest behind the stairs going up. This put me looking down the hall toward the front door.

My husband came into the building with a blond woman wearing a camel hair coat. She wore her hair shoulder length and curled up on the ends like Annette Funicello used to. They stopped in front of the second door from the front. His back was toward me, and she was facing me. They were laughing and talking as she fished in her purse for her keys. She found them, hand they keys to him and he unlocked the door. They went in and closed the door.

I could have followed, but I didn't want to spy, I just wanted to know he was alright.

Immediately -WHOOSH! - I was back in my body laying in my bed. But my mind was at ease and I went to sleep.

Months later, after the baby was born on 12/10/61, he left us when she was four months old and moved in with this girlfriend. I won't bore you with all the sordid details.

One day, he came over to settle up some financial accounts and I decided to bite the bullet and confront him with what I'd seen. I asked him, "Do you know a girl with blond hair who lives in an apartment on Hibiscus Island that has dark carpet with great, big yellow flowers .....?)

He never confirmed it, but his face went ashen, his jaw dropped, his eyes popped, and he said, "You bitch, you had me followed!"

That was confirmation enough for me.

It Happens Again .....
It was 1964 and I was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma with my three year old daughter. Kennedy had been killed the previous year and we were getting up to our necks in Viet Nam.

I lived in the upper part of an old victorian 2-story house. It was furnished with red velvet plush, old oak carved furniture. Very little closet space, but I had a huge old ornate chest in my bedroom to hang clothes in.

I was going with a guy who worked for a big oil company. He loved my daughter and spent a lot of time at our house. He called and wanted to come over one Sunday afternoon to watch the football game on my TV.

I was real tired and not a big fan of football, so when he settled in to watch the game, I asked him to keep an eye on my daughter and I went to take a short nap.

When I woke up from my nap, I could hear the game on the TV in the living room. I could hear my daughter jabbering to him and him answering her. I could see the white filmy curtains blowing inward at the open window.

But when I went to get up, I could not move. I could move my eyes, I could see and hear, but I could not move! I tried to scream, but I could not scream! Not even a squeek!

I finally became aware that I was paralyzed because part of me was missing. When that thought struck, I immediately was across the room on top of the old clothes chest, between two antique hatboxes. I was looking across the room and down at myself laying on the bed.

When it registered on me that THAT was me down there - it scared me silly.

I immediately went -WHOOSH!- and was back in my body. The impact jarred me and I jumped off the bed and ran to the livingroom. When I sat down on the couch, my boyfriend looked at me and said, "What's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

I had.

Mine.