I did not grow up near a cornfield (where the tall stalks rustled with hints of things unseen). I grew up packed among my siblings in a large bustling city.

My family did not move into a beautiful old house (where doors slammed shut unexpectedly or creaked open, observed but unbidden). No flickering lights were blamed on rats or old wiring. Ghosts—if there were any in our crowded apartment—could never have been heard over our noise, even if we chewed our dinner without speaking or slept without snoring. And if the glow from the light bulbs ever wavered, I doubt we would have noticed; we were too busy living.

I didn't own battery-powered toys that moved by themselves or electronics that turned on unaided. (I never picked up an incoming call only to be met with heavy breathing). Our things worked and broke and were repaired or discarded as things will always be. We left the world's propensity for disorder unchallenged, so we never feared losing control.

We have never felt paranoia (no whispers, invisible prods, or movements barely seen). But it's true there have been a few invasions: The shower drain in the unit above leaked into our ceiling and left demonic-looking patterns of mold. We took up our bleach, brushes and rain ponchos. And we scrubbed. It is difficult but possible to live free.

We clean and keep no secrets about it so we are not haunted by dark shadows from within the collective psyche (no projected manifestations are there to spring into our lives).

We look closely when we scrub so that fear of the unknowable does not alter the steady beating of our hearts. Our hearts, like our clocks, never stop at odd times; they only progress in cycles.

I was never told to carry nostalgia with me and I'm forever grateful to those who kept me from that burden. True, my parents died when I was a baby, but their place was flawlessly filled by the children suited to it. The ones old enough to remember having mothers and fathers must have known that life and death hold hands and spin in circles while the constellations bloom and fade—for this is how they taught us to live. We will never worry about our impending departures from this life because leaving is part of what we're living now.

We sense the often fabled hauntings only when we emerge from our home and meander through distant neighborhoods. It's sad and uncanny to see people so disturbed. They carry their pasts in enormous rucksacks and drag behind them their futures. They are trapped and lost in non-places (in airports, supercenters, fast food chains, or other replicated in-betweens). They remain nowhere because they hold onto destinations, always moving forward but with too much weight to become.

But us? We go back inside and we live.

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