Dear Fi,
It’s so cool that you started So Weird dot com at such a young age while traveling the country on a tour bus. What was your scariest experience? Will you ever write a book on what you’ve seen?
I also love that you were part of the message board scene that keeps these stories, these experiences, and these gifts alive. When did you know you were a psychic medium? Does it still scare you to this day, or have you worked out your discernment like me?
Weirdly, your website is the first place I recognized myself. You also see and feel things you don’t have the vocabulary for; it’s scary but so hot in your solar plexus that it burns like the sun. Others might not understand, but you understood. You respected the process of waking and believing—the time it takes to trust, as you were also starting your journey.
Does it keep you up at night, discerning how much you experienced? Does it reveal itself in your dreams, too?
I wish you hope, fun, and excitement, and I hope you live your biggest dreams on the other side of this spiritual journey. I’ll meet you at the gig.
-Shannon
This isn’t far from what I would submit to So Weird dot com in a world where (fictional character) Fiona Phillips was a real person who also became an adult. But she’s not, and in this scenario, I’m the one with a website sharing my personal ghost stories with a little bit of research attached.
Manifest carefully, friends.
The children’s television show So Weird follows Fiona, played by Cara DeLizia, her brother, Jack (played by Patrick Levis; also in Brink!), the band and crew, and their mom, (a newly widowed) rock star, played by Mackenzie Phillips, as they travel on tour supporting their mom. Along the way, Fi (Fiona) and the crew get caught up in paranormal mysteries, which are solved by the end of the episode.
The show was executive-produced by a Scorpio man himself, Henry Winkler. The Fonz cosigned the coolness of this show. I was obsessed with the allure of the internet playing into ghost stories. Not for nothing, but I could not believe someone was having a very similar experience to my life. I regularly experienced spiritual and ghostly encounters, and I was deep into the early internet– on boards and websites talking about music and, of course, the creepy and paranormal.
Fi and I had quite a lot in common. It’s hard not to identify with that insatiable hunger for clarity and her spiritual love of music. Fi often encounters a specter or phenomenon. It takes her a minute to catch up. Seeing a ghost or spirit is like real-life time travel. Everything slows down, and your body slips into fight, flight, or freeze. And I get it. Your body is like, what the fuck am I seeing right now while your brain is doing the calculus of what is going on.
When the fear subsides and your adrenaline balances, your brain emerges like, woah, that was a spirit—sometimes all in the same 10 seconds. Something clicks in my brain. It’s not just a desire to know. It’s something innate I came equipped with but without instruction, much like Fi.
In the pilot episode (one of my favorites), Fi and the band arrive at a venue on the Chicago River. The venue experiences electrical issues, weird noises, cold spots, and all the classic haunting symptoms, which sends Fi into a tailspin of excitement and intrigue. A few beats later, she’s spooked by a child. Except this child is not alive, and he’s soaking wet. It looks like he went for a swim but in full wool clothing from the early 1900s. It takes her a minute to understand what she’s seeing.
When she recounts her encounter, the people around her don’t believe her. What she got correctly in this episode is what took me years to work out–and that was not caring what people thought. In the episode, she stomps away, hollering I don’t care what you think, I don’t care what any of you think! While she’s rightfully hurt, she’s also a kid of conviction. She knows what she saw was exactly what it was.
She never let others' opinions deter her from dedicating herself and conducting research on those departed and honored who found her. She shared her insight and research through her writing. She was her whole self! What a blessing to just be, even if she didn’t identify it at the time.
Don’t Cha Love Chicago
During Fi’s research in this pilot episode, she revealed a lesser-known SS Eastland Disaster. It sank in 1915 along the Chicago River. Eight hundred forty-four souls were lost, including 22 entire families.
Corpses were placed in rows of 85 as the identification process began. Just before midnight, the public was admitted, 20 at a time, to look for family members. [Source]
If you're on the Riverwalk, it’s impossible to miss the site between the LaSalle and Clark Street Bridges in front of the Reid Murdoch & Co. Warehouse, home of Britannica. The building, constructed the year before the disaster, is striking and prominent along the water.
My husband and I visit Chicago often, and the location was the first thing I looked up on our first visit. The 1998 version of me didn’t expect to be standing in the spot of the tragedy, as told by the girl with the gifts and the website. At the time of my visit, I was the Girl with the Gifts but not yet the one with the website.
Fi put their story on her site. She made sure they were rightfully remembered for what happened to them. Her encounter guided her, an incredible act of intuition and bravery! I’ve learned so much. Sharing my experiences and gifts on my website brings me sunshine and joy. I know what I’ve seen.
The Shadow Man
I hate going upstairs alone. I always sprint up the stairs. I won’t go unless the lights are on. These were the oft-repeated phrases of my family members who would have to go upstairs after sunset in the beach home we all knew and loved.
The Cozy Blue Home was located in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, with incredible proximity to the bay and just a block and a half to the ocean. The northeast window flooded my room with sunlight and comfort, wafting in the ocean's roar and sprinkling in a saline breeze, breathing its power into the home.
The stairs greeted you with immediacy, the door just a few paces from the bottom stair. At the top, a full bath is sandwiched by two bedrooms on either side, flooding the north and south spaces in the home. To the left a living room with huge windows and a comforting green carpet. The adjoining room was the dining room, which used to have a swinging kitchen door and lived in the heart of the house.
The kitchen overlooked the deck, which sat in the backyard filled with grass, pine, cedar, and a garden. The sunroom and the den, featuring a dark brick fireplace and gorgeous wood paneling, led you to the laundry room and half bath, and you arrived back at the front door.
This was home. All the best things happened here: Christmas Eve, Easter, Sundays after Mass, family gatherings, parties, and community. My family is loud, boisterous, and incredibly Irish Catholic, with Puerto Rican ancestors guiding us from the perch of the stairs.
Pop S. was my grandmother’s grandfather. He was a man from Puerto Rico who emigrated to the United States in 1908 with his young daughter, my great-grandmother. I found their records on Ellis Island, which was an unexpected spiritual moment. They landed in Philadelphia, where my grandparents were raised in an Irish Catholic community.
My grandparents would move to the barrier island town of Sea Isle City into the home my grandfather built (which has since been demolished as their ages and needs changed). My dad grew up there like we did as kids, living in a multigenerational household.
Some of my fondest memories include hopping in friends' cars on chilly Halloweens as their parents drove us to the houses with candy. Because of the small off-season population, walking wasn’t always an option, and landing back at the house to count the sweet loot while watching Hocus Pocus. It was a dream.
In the summer, the house was filled with more gatherings, which included grilling on the deck and loud parties attended by family members singing Irish Rebel Songs well into twilight.
Sp0o0oky
After the magic and sugar high subsided, we all put on brave faces to walk to bed.
At the house, we would go upstairs in pairs. Many of us were too scared of The Shadow Man, who stood watch at the top. I have countless memories of mistaking him for a real person, including a couple of instances in which I was running and said, “‘scuse me,” to the figure that wasn’t there.
Pop S. would stand at the top of the stairs, relaxed, watching over the family, especially my grandmother. During the day, he would peacefully watch at the top of the stairs, monitoring those going in and out and protecting all the children bounding up and down the staircase. At night, he would pace between my grandparents' bedroom door and his spot just outside the bathroom. Everyone had to be accounted for.
As pre-teens, we started talking about it again long after we moved out, and the house still stood. I asked if anyone else remembers The Shadow Man. I was pleasantly surprised by everyone’s yes response, which extended to yeses from the aunts and cousins.
That home is still my home, though it's no longer where I live, and the foundation no longer stands. It’s weirdly metaphorical for this spiritual awakening phase. When I meditate, I’m back there. It smells and looks exactly as it did then, but I’m me now.
During a meditation to formally meet my guides, I was back in Sea Isle and looked through the eyes of Pop S. down the stairs to the front door. I was seeing through the eyes of The Shadow Man. I felt such a calm sense of strength. He’s a deeply kind man with a warm demeanor and a soft side. He has a rich fighting spirit, which he reserves for his family, for whom he profoundly feels. I felt all of this in my solar plexus and heart. He’s also playful and forward, constantly reminding me of the strength in joy and self.
In the meditation, I observed myself running up the stairs to the sunny room that smelled like the ocean. I felt protection and guidance. I understood Pop S. never left; he’s always been my protector and the protector of my family.
Our ancestors want us to know the love and power they possess from the beyond. If you’ve ever recognized a familiar feeling you related to someone who’s departed, it’s more than likely them. You’re not crazy; it’s a reminder that the love we create here leaves a lasting impression.
Sometimes, our ancestors watch us from the stairs. Sometimes, it’s in the birds you experience that day or how the sunlight hits the water in the summer. Maybe it’s the color of your strawberries from your garden or the bouquet you randomly received. The love we feel from spirit is real. Love is and has always been in actions and feelings, and it will always remain.
The Siren with The Gifts and The Website
So, Weird gave mainstream attention to my incredibly specific experiences. Paranormal curiosity became a little cooler for the younger generation, who would become chronically online, much like our main character, Fi.
So Weird was a category all its own. It felt like a win for me. I was fully represented on TV. It felt like I was watching myself on another timeline, like looking at something I already knew about who I was but didn’t fully grasp. Taking a moment to catch up is a pattern in my life, especially in the face of unsavory moments. It takes weeks, months, and years to metabolize the impact of it all.
Let your heart find precisely who you need to be, even if it’s So Weird for others—it’s irrelevant. The people who love you will continue to do so. They’ll support you even if it takes a minute to catch up on understanding. It’s about doing it anyway and allowing your community and village to share acceptance because they love who you are.
And sometimes, you tell the world about it and know they’ll accept you, too.
Comments