Spooky Season is now

and my ghostly roommate is back, just in time to celebrate

I’m one of those obnoxious types who gets really into Halloween long before it’s Halloween time, or even long before it’s October. I’ve loved Spooky Season for as long as I can remember—not for the kitschy fun (though I do enjoy the kitschy fun, too) but for the thinness between realities, the mystical crossover between worlds. Something about that awareness of multiple realities feels very important and sacred to me.

I’ve had quite a few weird experiences in my life. I’ve talked about some of them on podcasts (not only my own, but others like Euphomet and Anything Ghost.) Many people have reacted with surprise that I take paranormal stuff so much in stride, but the fact is, none of it has ever felt threatening to me. Just because something is different, that doesn’t mean it’s a threat.

Anyway, here’s a throwback to the first time I saw Kitchen Ghost, the spirit who hangs out at my house. We live in a “character conversion,” which is BC-ese for “an old historic mansion that has been converted into apartments.” When we first moved in, all our neighbors in the mansion came to greet us, one after the other, and each said some version of, “You know this place is haunted, right?”

It definitely is. There’s a place in the building where each of the four apartments overlaps. A column runs through Unit 1’s guest bedroom, my kitchen, Unit 3’s upstairs bathroom, and Unit 4’s third-story bedroom. It’s in this vertical column where the spirit has been most active, mainly in the form of loud sounds at night (it likes to make the sound of something heavy being shoved across a surface and then falling on the floor, though when we go and check, nothing has been pushed or dropped from anywhere—it was just a disembodied sound) though at least two of us, myself included, have actually seen it on a number of occasions. It takes the form of a shadowy torso, shoulders, and head (no arms, no legs) moving around at a height that would make it stand about six feet high, if it had legs to stand on. You really can’t see any facial features, though I don’t know if that’s because it has none or because my mind just can’t really put words to its face, so the face doesn’t register in my conscious awareness. It’s also surrounded by a bit of a golden/yellow light or aura.

It’s an entirely non-threatening presence. Most of the time, it seems to be unaware of me and is just going about its business. I’ve speculated that it’s not a “ghost” at all—as in, the spirit of a dead person—but rather that it’s just an ordinary person going about its life in some parallel reality, and I’m somehow able to see across the barrier between its world and mine.

Except one time, it definitely did seem to see me. Kitchen Ghost is a common presence in my kitchen (hence the name), but I’ve only rarely encountered it outside the kitchen or the adjoining hall. One of those times, back in April of 2023, I was sitting on my couch in the living room, messing around on my phone, and some motion caught my eye at the room’s threshold. I looked up to see Kitchen Ghost’s familiar black shoulders and head peeking around the door jamb at me. As soon as I looked up, it ducked back behind the jamb as if I’d scared the shit out of it and it was hiding from me!

…it wasn’t the first time I’d laid eyes on a paranormal entity that appeared to be frightened out of its wits by my presence. (Another reason why I’m not afraid of ghosts and spirits and critters of all kinds: sometimes they seem as shocked by the encounter as I am. What’s to be afraid of there?)

After Kitchen Ghost obviously saw me, I didn’t encounter it again for many months. I figured it had done something on its end to banish me from its reality (burned sage, got a blessing from a priest, however you strengthen the barriers between worlds in its world.) But we recently had two tenants move out and new people move in—a family of three in one unit, and a new roommate for my downstairs neighbor. And suddenly, Kitchen Ghost is back again!

I’ve seen him twice over the past week or so—once as I crossed the hall and there he was, nonchalantly passing from the kitchen straight through the closet door under the stairs (before this place was remodeled into apartments, there used to be an open passageway between what’s now the kitchen and what was once some sort of ballroom or library, and is now my living room… that passage obviously ran through what is now the closet under my stairs, and the stairs didn’t exist back then.) The other time, he was just futzing around the kitchen like normal.

As the heat of summer begins to subside (thank God) and the days become cloudy, gray, and crisp with the pleasant tang of Salish salt, it feels natural to welcome Kitchen Ghost back to the Haunted Mansion. I’m sorry his ritual to banish me didn’t work long-term, but I try to be a good roommate and respect his right to exist as he does. Hopefully we can continue to co-exist without his disappearing again, because I kind of like having him around.