I like to start each year of 31 Ghosts with a true story. In 2017 I kicked off the first round of stories writing about when my dad’s spirit visited my sister and I shortly after his death (on October 1, 1991). The next year I began retelling my very first paranormal encounters when my sister and I listened to invisible footsteps up the stairway of the creaky old house we lived in at the time. Last year I wrote about the circumstances of my mom’s death for the first time. Specifically, the visitations I felt sitting bedside through one of the long last nights of her life.

In the run up to October 1 this year I ran through my life for paranormal encounters to mine for this year’s kickoff. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything I hadn’t already written about. In addition to the aforementioned incidents, there were the couple of incidents in Sunnyvale I wrote about, and I even wrote about the ghosts at a winery I’ve bartended numerous weddings at.

While initially I worried I wouldn’t be able to fill this first, non-fiction spot with ghosts from my life upon reflection I realized that more than ever my life is filled with ghosts.

We all know what kind of a dumpster fire 2020 has been. So much so that just calling 2020 a dumpster fire feels like a cliché. But taken as a whole, so much about what we considered “normal” has been utterly uprooted that I don’t know anyone who claims to stand on solid metaphorical footing these days. Even if you haven’t been personally touched by the pandemic – and if you haven’t, count your blessings, keep wearing your mask, and diligently wash your hands – you might have lost a long-time job or struggled with sharing your home life with a work-from-home regiment. Maybe you’ve had to adapt to kids remotely “learning” and shoe-horning their requirements into yours on a daily basis. Or that wanderlust you’ve been able to indulge as often as you could suddenly withered on the vine as mandatory lockdowns forced you to vacation in the far off locale of the south corner of your living room. God bless you if you’re one of the legion of overworked, under-appreciated first line workers.

In short, we’re all a little crazy these days.

I feel very lucky I haven’t lost anyone in my immediate circle of family and friends – fortunately, those close to me who have had Covid have recovered without apparent long term effects. But we all know of those who weren’t so lucky. As I write this, the US has lost more than two hundred thousand lives. Regardless of your politics, when Joe Biden said something to the effect of that’s a lot of open seats around dinner tables… that has stuck with me.

I was recently introduced to the Swahili concepts of Sasha and Zamani. Sasha refers to things in recent memory – time and events you, I, or folks around us can call to memory; living memory. Zamani is when the last living person who has first-hand knowledge of those times and events passes and they pass into, well, history. I was reading Colin Dickey’s Ghostland: An American History In Haunted Places when he cited another author’s text using the terms. Dickey applies the terms to the supposed ghost of a woman who haunts Cathedral Park in Portland, Oregon. Thelma Taylor was murdered in 1949 after being abducted from under the St. John’s bridge where the park is now. Dickey discusses the strange juxtaposition of ghostly legends of those who are still Sasha – Thelma Taylor’s little sister is still alive, after all. Paulette Jarrett was just three when her sister was killed, and she remembers just a couple memories. She finishes telling them by saying, “I just wish I’d known her a little better.”

I feel I’m at an age where I’m balanced between two states. Both of my parents are gone, but I still have family and friends to share memories of them with. Yet, I feel the pull of Zamani, stronger with the death of people I share their memory with. My dad’s closest sister, Nancy, died a few years ago. Before she passed, I had the luxury of talking to her about growing up with my dad – a side of him I never would have heard. Her husband, Chuck, just joined Nancy on that side of the veil about a year ago and his stories and perspectives have now gone quiet. A little less Sasha, by degrees…

They say the seraphim that separates the world of the living and those gone grows thinner through this month as the days get shorter and the nights get longer and gradually colder. I catch little signs that could be interpreted as winks from those we love and have lost, like cresting an exhausting bluff on a recent hike, out of breath, but proud of myself for the exertion and feeling like the four pelicans flying by at eye level in formation are my dad’s way of saying he’s still proud of me. Or a hummingbird flitting into view and hovering directly in front of me before zipping out of sight the other week when the depression of events threatened to overwhelm me. That was mom saying she’s still here. As I write this, I’m shuffling through a 500-song playlist on Spotify. Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful Life” – one of my dad’s absolute favorite songs – just started playing. Okay, dad, thanks for reading over my shoulder.

I haven’t even touched on the now-annual terror of fire season. The Walbridge fire forced me out of my house for a week and a half and stopped just a couple of miles up the road in Armstrong Woods. When you’re tasked with grabbing whatever you can of your life you’ve accumulated that can fit in a car-sized space and leaving the rest to what may come, you really start to realize what’s important. Pets, obviously – Kiki, the Last Pet Standing, doesn’t travel well, but she was first in the car, of course. Just about everyone I know follows the living things with pictures – loose, in albums, scrapbooks, even that portable hard drive you diligently scanned umpteen hundred sepia-toned pictures of Zamani. What other ghosts do you put in your car? I brought just two of my guitars – both of which I have more stories of than recorded music. I talked to my dad about getting my Telecaster when he was in the hospital for one of his cancer surgeries. He didn’t know a Telecaster from a Takamine, but teenage Jordy grasped for something… “Remember, dad, when we watched the Kentucky Headhunters perform on TV the other night? That was the guitar the lead guitarist played…” I remember seeing a spark of recognition in his eyes. I remember…

Thankfully, I can say so far nothing has threatened my home more than the Walbridge fire, but recent fires throughout the area have caused almost constant flurries of dirty snowy ash. In the days after the winds whipped the 2017 Tubbs fire west out of Napa and flames went roaring through unsuspecting Santa Rosa neighborhoods, I remember the then-fresh fear of a perceived “normal” having been burnt down literally overnight. As the fire retreated to the hills for the rest of the month, we got our first ash flurries. I remember more than one person pointing out the ash falling may have come from someone’s home, or the sheets on the bed they fled as the orange furious flames bore down on them. The gray, white, and black ash that swirls and flutters from our smokey skies during this fire season are little ghosts converted in an angry flash.

Yet, even when the pictures turn to ash, or, more hopefully, fade beyond recognition by time, we will still tell our stories. I love getting together with my family – these days we gather every other Sunday on Zoom, naturally – because we talk about our memories, about houses we lived in, about crazy experiences we shared. We’ve always done this – a Jensky gathering is loud, often raucous, and utterly joyful. Even on sad occasions we manage to laugh and laugh heartily. “If we couldn’t laugh, we’d all go insane,” sang Jimmy Buffet (who might just be my family’s patron saint).  

Thank you, the living, for joining me today, this first day of October for this first entry into the 2020 season of 31 Ghosts. Tomorrow I plan on summoning my legion of Sasha around me – mom, dad, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Chuck, Uncle Mike, Nana, and so many more – to stand behind me as I put together fictional tales of spirits up to no good, the living up to worse, and a whole lot of unexplained encounters. Part of the sport of this month for me is I have no idea what is coming. That in itself is terrifying and exhilarating. I earnestly hope you find a little bit of scary, a little bit of funny, and a lot of joy from the next 30 ghosts coming. I know I will!