Do You Perceive... Extra-Sensorily?

Recently I have exchanged emails with a distant cousin who is just beginning to discover her Texas roots, a history long denied her due to a childhood without a connection to her bio father. I will try to fill in some missing pieces for her, but they are, after all, only family lore - some factual, some fantasy.

This cousin also grew up without knowing her father's mother - her grandmother, and my second cousin on my mother's side. I never knew the lady in question, either, but her name, along with her brother's name, has always been a curiosity to me. Odd names, even for the times in which they were born: Idoma and Audayne. My mother would occasionally give a little story here and there about her cousins with the unique first names. Audayne ended up on the wrong side of the law and was shot down by a whole posse of lawmen in an alleyway behind the Strater Hotel, in Durango, Colorado during the mid 1950's. No one seemed to know what happened to Idoma...until several months ago when I was contacted via emails from the half-sister of the distant cousin I mentioned at the start of this post.

Idoma was convinced she had special powers, like a healer or someone who could predict the future, or perhaps connect with long dead loved ones. These distant cousins have wonderful stories about the colorful woman, their paternal grandmother with the strange first name. Things like painting winter-browned bushes a bright kelly green with spray paint because Idoma was tired of all the cold weather (she had moved "up north").

Seems like every family in America can lay claim to an Indian ancestor, and Idoma credited her "powers" with her supposed "Indian" bloodline - perhaps Choctaw. Who am I to say she wasn't at least partially right?



Image from the site of Christiane Dore

On rare occasion, I have had for want of a better term, ESP moments. I am sure the scientific community would have a far more sane explanation for some of my experiences, but I prefer the magical connotation of "ESP". I know that I have no control over when my ESP decides to manifest, so I have a big problem believing anyone can command ESP at will. It just doesn't happen that way...at least not for me.

I am not talking about the deja vu kind of experiences we all have at some time or other, I am speaking of premonitions and dreams that become reality.

One dream that happened within the last 5 years has stuck with me and refused to fade, and though I have had several exremely memorable instances, this one still creeps me out.

I was working in commercial real estate and belonged to a professional group that convened every month for a breakfast meeting at a local country club. My sleep the night before one of these meetings was fretful and I finally drifted off to a deeper sleep in the wee morning hours. And I dreamed. I dreamed I was sitting at one of the breakfast round tables ( these tables sat about 8 people).

There was music and dancing in my dream, though in real life this did not occur at our meetings. A man sitting directly across from me asked me to dance, the music was a waltz. I remember feeling very awkward dancing because the man had a deformed left hand, several of his fingers were stubs and scarred as if they were burned at some point and had caused the hand to resemble a claw.

Upon awakening, I remembered the dream vividly, then quickly pushed it aside to get ready for my meeting. There were several new people/realtors attending the meeting that morning, and I was seated at a table (along with the property manager of our company) with several unfamiliar faces. The gentleman sitting across from me smiled and we had a couple of words of polite chit chat. Waiters were circulating the room with stainless thermos pitchers, and one stopped at our table to refill cold cups with fresh coffee.

The man across the table brought up his left hand from his lap where it had been hidden underneath the tablecloth, and waved the waiter away from his cup, which contained hot tea as I recall. It was one of those times when time seemed to move in slow motion; I knew, I knew his left hand would be like the man's scarred hand in my dream.


It was.

I freaked.

My own hand shook so suddenly I sloshed hot coffee into my cup saucer. The property manager I worked with raised one eyebrow at me and tossed me a questioning look. I whispered to him that I would explain my reaction after we returned to the office from our meeting. The property manager gave me wide berth for the rest of the work day when I shared my dream events with him.

Later, I would discover that my property manager was a distant cousin, related to Idoma as well.

It was his turn to be freaked. But, that's another story...