What I see on a day-to-day basis varies. As I have gotten older and have more control over what I feel and how I feel things, it seems as though spirits come to me easily these days. My feelings are far less manic and therefore the control of it gives me a better understanding of when I should trust what I see.

Driving is hard for me, not the act of driving or even the concentration; it is the fact that when I am, I have myself wide open in order to sense possible issues. I focus on patterns of everyone’s driving. That allows me to have a certain kind of focus to stimulate a part of my brain. I believe it bypasses overthought and links straight into unquestioned instinctual intuition. That being said, I see everything. It opens a door that doesn’t just allow one or two things in, it allows everything. Spirits standing on the side of the road, shadows, orbs, outlines of figures, spirits moving across the road, echoes of energies long past that resemble historic times, feeling the emotions of the drivers in other cars, passengers staring out windows with minds wondering on things they think no one can hear. Oh, but I can. I hear it and I hear you.

Sometimes I drive down the street and see a spirit – it sees me noticing it – and it may even sense that I feel bad for ‘running it over’, even though we all know that isn’t exactly possible. You kind of need a physical body to be physically run over. Purely noticing its existence made it capable of seeing me. Several times the spirit simply hops into the car with me and starts a conversation. The common first response is, “Wait, you can see me?” But because it generally is a hypothetical question, the conversation moves past that quite quickly. I simply say ‘Yes’, and that is enough of an answer for them.

You see, that is a reason I love spirits, they don’t need to see your credentials, degrees, or certificates. They don’t care what gender you are (most of the time). They don’t need proof, or validity of your abilities, they don’t really care how you “learned” to talk to them. They are lonely, they just want to talk to anyone. That is why ‘yes’ is so quickly dismissed, and ‘you can see me?’ is a silly thing to ask.

Once a spirit approached me in a Staples. No shit, a friggn Staples. He was sitting on a floor display of an office desk. He was young, so I assumed he was a friend of one of the many younger teens working in that particular store. He followed me around for a bit but noticed I had no time to talk so he politely left me alone. Some just want that validation, that they are seen. Isn’t that all of us though? Don’t we all just ultimately want to be seen?

There is a spirit that hangs out in the parking lot of my school. He always hangs out right under the street lamp next to the entrance. I say ‘good evening’ to him every time I go to class, I make a point to park next to his light if I can, just so that I can interact with him. It is like checking up on a good friend. “Hey, Joe! How goes it?” His name is not actually Joe, and even though I say hello to him every time, he never responds, but I don’t care. He deserves a kind word.

I never expect the spirits to respond to me if I say anything; they are like any one of us really. Would you be open to pouring your whole life story out to a stranger on the street? No, I didn’t think so. It is ultimately about intent. You say something nice to someone to be kind, not to get praise in return.

It took years of saying hello to Parking-Lot-Street-Lamp-Joe for him to even notice my existence.

Be kind to spirits if you are lucky enough to see them, they are raw emotion and energy, they deserve respect like everyone else.