The Catwalk at West High
And out-of-body experiences
Memories, for me, are faulty. When I was a teenager, I had several out-of-body experiences which were emotionally painful. I came out of them changed. They always involved an infatuation and ended up with darkness and a rationalization that the guy probably wasn’t right for me. At the time, I didn’t think about them, I just moved on.
I tried to write about my out-of-body experiences during college. But I couldn’t understand how I could see myself during the brief episodes. I read about near-death experiences. Maybe our souls separate from our bodies when we die, but what about when we’re young and alive? And do our souls have eyes? I still don’t really understand how I was able to see myself while at a school dance, or while riding a motorcycle. I wasn’t near death, I was functioning and living in my body while simultaneously viewing myself from another vantage point.
I was decorating for a school dance during my freshman year of high school when I was struck by what I saw. I was with my best friend Kathy up on a catwalk hanging snowflakes for a Winter Wonderland dance. She wanted to get down as quickly as possible as she had a fear of heights. But I wanted to stay up there forever, looking down over the gymnasium. Because it was the same view I had had during my out-of-body experiences, but without the…
