The historic Menger hotel in San Antonio is haunted. That's
what all the stories say. Of course, they also make the same claim about the Emily
Morgan hotel, the Espada mission, and at least a dozen other places. But I was
checking into the Menger, so it was their ghosts that were of interest. The part
that of me that always wonders about the "what elses" of life was on
mild alert as I went up to my room. The room was lovely, with tall ceilings and
a window that looked out over the Alamo. More ghosts there, the stories say.
After unpacking, I went downstairs to find my brother Steve and
our friends Minh and Maria. Together, we walked over to our conference hotel. In the doorway of the other hotel, Minh got into a "you go first" dance with a stranger. He glanced down at her, then asked where she was from. "Vietnam", she answered, and the man's eyes took on a faraway hollowness. "I've been there," he said, and she looked at him closely. "In the 70's." He nodded. My petite friend turned the full force of her ear-to-ear smile on the stranger and said simply, "Thank you for coming to help us." A ghost flickered in the man's eyes and slipped away.
It got me to thinking. Aren't we all haunted in some way?
Down inside, where the what if's lurk, are the unfinished
things of our lives. Words we meant to say. Embarrassments
not forgiven. Disappointments that still hurt. And the moment we hang on to that little wisp of yesterday, a ghost is
born.
Of late, though, it seems that Murphy has decided to afflict me with another's ghost. The ghost of Dr. Freud, to be exact. Not the Freud of ids, egos and analyses, but the Freud of
the infamous slip.
In a recent deposition, the witness explained in detail the
various crises in his life. The deposing attorney asked, "When was this?"
"Fue todo el mes," answered the witness,
"It was the whole mess," I interpreted.
The lawyers' confused faces let me know that my less-conscious
mind had spoken. "Interpreter correction," I quickly added, stifling
a grin, "It lasted the whole month."
At home, I have been trying to catch up on the myriad
little jobs required to keep my house in habitable condition. The sink in the
hall bathroom was stopped up but I didn't want to call a plumber because - it seemed - I should be able to unstop a sink. While on the floor patiently
snaking the pipes, I realized how dirty it was down
where I didn't normally look. I've never been a domestic goddess. Still, it was humbling to realize that plumbing problems were less onerous
to me than mopping.
And speaking of plumbing - success! At least, of
sorts. The sink drained, but very slowly. I left a trickle of water running to
help flush out whatever was in there, and went to do the laundry.
It might have been two hours later, I'm not sure, but at
some point I remembered the trickle of water. I stepped into the hall bathroom
and into a half-inch of water.
The ghost of Freud, whispering my secret failings to Murphy?
Perhaps. At any rate, I mopped.
See, that's the thing about ghosts. Sooner or later, they force us to face the things that haunt us.
That first night in the Menger hotel, I found it hard to get
to sleep. It wasn't worry about ghosts. It was the hooves from the horses
drawing carriages past the Alamo. It was the loudly happy people exiting the bar
one floor below. It was the car alarm that sounded again and again and yet
again. Just as I would start to fall asleep, some new noise would punctuate the
night. I was getting grumpier by the minute. Around 2 a.m. it finally got
quiet.
I don't know how much later it was, but one moment I was
asleep and the next I was fully awake for no discernible reason. It was utterly
silent. No sounds in the night, just me sitting there, every sense on high
alert. Had ghosts decided to show up after all? The thought no sooner crossed my mind than the frustrated need for rest reared its head: Well, you can all just go away - I have GOT to get to sleep! And I fell back onto my pillows.
In the comparative hush that filled the room, I realized I
had once again voiced my thoughts out loud. Not just out loud, but loudly. And
grumpily.
An uncontrollable fit of giggles took over. Goodbye, sleep.
Somewhere, Murphy and a ghost exchanged high fives.
