A Personal Mystery for New Year's Eve.

’Tis now New Year’s Eve and the traditional time to look back over that artificially contrived span we call twelve months. I don’t usually bother, since dates are just numbers and I’ve long felt that the definition of a year should be solstice to solstice. But this year something is tugging at me, insisting that I write it down for no better reason than the fact that it seems rather more significant than it should. Back in May I was visited for the first time by the wraith of the Lady B.

At this juncture I should explain that I had known her for about ten years by then, and during that time she had moved in incremental stages further and further to the edge of my orbit. In consequence – and being a bear of moderate brain – I thought I had put her behind me and that she was no longer of any significance, especially since such significance had always been a bit of a mystery anyway. Not so.

On that day in the merry month of May I was hit in the middle of my chest with such force that it arrested my movement and seemed to pull my head and shoulders down. (Imagine getting a sudden and severe attack of heartburn; it was something like that.) And the message which rose into my mind from the onslaught was unequivocal. It told me in no uncertain terms that my fondness for the dear lady was undiminished, and so was the magical, magnetic pull which her presence in this world had long exerted on me, almost certainly without any artifice or volition on her part. And then, less than a week later, I learned that she had left my orbit altogether and shut the door behind her.

I found it devastating at the time and struggled for weeks to understand why. Eventually I did and it helped, but the wraith became a regular visitor and continues so to be.

So should I be grateful that she left something of her presence behind to haunt me - forcibly, though not aggressively - on the byways of the Shire, in my house, and even in the little market towns to which I make regular forays? I don’t know. On the one hand it can be enervating; on the other, it brings a splash of colour to an otherwise grey life. And maybe one day the wraith will explain to me the mystery of the Lady B connection. But that raises its own issue: without knowing what the explanation is, I can’t know whether or not it would be welcome.

Meanwhile, I can now rest content in ending the year with a brief explanation as to why the Lady B has attracted so many posts in 2017. I expect they will continue because some things just refuse to lie down and at least pretend to be dead even if they're not.