I think this is a ghost story.

Commissioned by Duo Entre-nous

I think this is a ghost story.

This phrase held such power over me during the year I spent writing this piece. Ghost stories are perhaps the oldest stories that exist, and I’ve always been deeply fascinated with their meaning to us as humans. To me, the heart of a ghost story is not terror, but melancholia. Beyond the surreality of apparitions revealing themselves in the twilight between waking and dreaming is a lost soul; a lover searching for their other half, or a house unable to say goodbye to its dweller. 

I wrote this work for Duo Entre-nous during the year after graduating college, trapped in the liminal space between academia and finding my place in the real world. It was difficult, at times, not to believe that I was a ghost. I felt I was haunting my own house, yearning for meaning I could not find. This piece is a reflection of that mindset. It is an amalgamation of every emotion a ghost story elicits from me, from fear of the unknown to love across the barriers of this world and the next and, of course, the resigned sadness of realizing:

I am a ghost.

Virtual premiere August 31, 2022