Watch Them Glow

This is going to be one of those posts that probably means nothing to anyone but me, but that's all right. Maybe one day someone will stumble across it and recognize what I'm going to describe, and will be relieved that someone else knows what it's like. Even if they don't...well, it doesn't really matter, I suppose, because it's also about trying to convert a feeling into imagery. 

So, please. . . bear with me. 

It was the end of April, and my collaborator and companion (in the Doctor Who sense, as I've come to think of us) had come down to go to Psych Fest. He wore a 13th Floor Elevators shirt and a blue metallic plaid jacket, I wore a psychedelic dress and enormous shoes. It was sunny but not hot, the crowd was amiable, the bands were good, and aside from the lock jamming on the bathroom door and having to be rescued by a bunch of hippies (high fives, y'all!) everything went off without a hitch. 

I don't recall feeling haunted. It wasn't a very haunted sort of day. Everything felt very warm and present in the sunshine, I didn't even have that feeling like I've had in the past, as if part of me had been left behind somewhere. No, there wasn't a trace of any haunting, as far as I could tell. 

It was only a couple of days later that things turned strange. 

At the very beginning of May, each having gone our separate ways home, we set about sorting through the photos and videos we'd taken with an eye toward future projects. We'd got some really good stuff, although the audio capabilities of my little point 'n' shoot camera couldn't really handle the sound at a rock show. Monsieur Pseud (as I like to call him) sent me one he'd taken with his phone, panning the crowd while the Raveonettes played in the background. Nothing unusual about it, really, not technically. It was a perfectly serviceable video and an accurate representation of the scene. I remembered him filming it even, while I lounged on a tree stump drinking Dr Pepper. No, what was unusual was my reaction to it. 

It hit me like a ton of bricks, that feeling of being haunted. It was like deja vu, but not deja vu of the actual event. It felt like the memory of something that had happened many years ago, a record of something of grave importance that had been missed and had only just now returned. What the hey? It didn't make sense, but that was the only way to describe it. The closest term to the feeling, besides haunted, might be hiraeth.

I needed a second, third, fourth opinion. Naturally, I dragged each of my family members in to watch it, asking if they noticed anything odd. Anything about the picture, atmosphere, the music, the mood? Did it make them feel some sort of way? Nope - aside from saying they might feel a bit anxious in such a packed setting, to their eyes it was exactly what it appeared to be, a typical rock fest crowd. It was just me who was being weird. 

Well, okay. There was no obvious explanation. And there still isn't, for the way it gives me a shiver every time. Just an ordinary video. As proof, I present it here, courtesy of Mr. Pseud. A crowd watching the Raveonettes tear it up as the sun is going down. 

But, surely you know by now that these things don't let me go so easily. I couldn't explain it; I could barely describe it. However, if I'm going to call myself an artist, I should at least be able to make something that looks like it made me feel. Perhaps it would help me understand. I got down to work.

My video editing skills are rudimentary at best, and I learned as much from what didn't work as what did. Not that it's perfect, mind you, but my husband, bless him, said it's about as good a visualization of deja vu as he's ever seen. Here is the finished product:

There you have it. Not how the clip looks to me, but how it feels. As if everything is doubled, every person accompanied by their own shade. Like some other, parallel world is close by, just over our shoulders and out of sight. And maybe it is. Who knows?  

Maybe part of collaboration is learning to see through someone else's eyes. Collective eyes of a sort. Again, who knows? Maybe I really am just weird. 

Whatever the case, it's yet another mystery to explore.