All language subtitles for Masterclass David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor - 14.Bonus Reading.The Spirit World

[LIGHT JAZZY MUSIC]

DAVID SEDARIS: This
is an essay that I

wrote it was in
the "Paris Review"

and was later in
an essay collection

that I wrote called "Calypso."

And the essay is called
"The Spirit World."

"Our house on Emerald Isle
is divided down the middle,

and has an E beside one front
door and a W beside the other.

The east side is ruled by
Hugh, and the bedroom we share

is on the top floor.

It opens onto a deck
that overlooks the ocean.

It is next to Amy's room,
which is the same size as ours

but is shaped differently.

Unlike Lisa and Paul, who are
on the west side of the house

and could probably sleep on
burlap without noticing it,

Amy likes nice sheets.

She'd packed a new
set in her suitcase,

and on the night
before Thanksgiving,

as I helped her
make her bed, she

mentioned a friend who had come
to her apartment for dinner

the previous
evening in New York.

'He drinks Coke, right?

So I went to the store on the
corner to buy some,' she said.

'And you know how those
new bottles have names

on the labels--

Blake, or Kelly, or whatever?'

I nodded.

'Well, there were only
two left on the shelf.

One with Mom printed on it,
and the other with Tiffany.'

I reached for a pillowcase.

'Do you think if I were dead
and there had been three bottles

on the shelf instead of two,
the third would have had my name

on it?'

Amy thought for a moment.

'Yes.' 'So the only Cokes at
that store in New York City are

for people in our
family who have died?'

She smoothed out the bedspread.

'Yes.'

I couldn't tell if she
honestly believed this.

It's hard to say with Amy.

On the one hand, she's very
pragmatic, and on the other,

she's open to just
about anything.

Astrology, for instance.

I wouldn't call
her a nut exactly,

but she has paid good money
to have her chart done.

And if you're talking
about someone,

she'll often ask when
this person's birthday

is and then say something
like, 'ah, a Gemini.

That makes sense now.'

She's big on
acupuncture as well,

which I also tend to think is
dubious, at least for things

like allergies.

That said, I admire
people who are curious

and open their minds
to new possibilities,

especially after a certain age.

You have to draw the
line somewhere, though,

and with me, it's my anus.

When I was in my early
30s, it became a thing

to have colonics.

A number of my friends started
going to a man in Chicago

and discussing the rubble
he'd discovered in their lower

intestines.

'A pumpkin seed, and I haven't
eat pumpkin in eight years.'

Their insides were
like pharaoh's tombs--

dark catacombs littered
with ancient relics.

Now people are giving
themselves coffee enemas,

believing it wards off
and even cures cancer.

'I think I'll take the cancer,
thank you very much,' my sister

Lisa said to me on
Thanksgiving morning.

'Amen to that,' I agreed.

Lisa's not open to the
things that Paul and Amy are,

but she has her equivalence.

If you told her, for instance,
that she was holding her car

keys the wrong way, and
that there were meetings

for people like her,
she'd likely attend them

for at least three months.

One of the groups
she was going to

lately was for mindful eating.

'It's not about dieting.

We don't believe
in that,' she said.

'You're supposed to
carry on as usual.

Three meals a day plus snacks
and desserts, or whatever.

The difference is that
now you think about it.'

She then confessed that the
donut she'd just finished

had been her sixth of the day.

'Who brought these?'

She asked.

I looked at the box
and whimpered a little.

'Kathy, I think.' 'God
damn her,' Lisa whispered.

A few weeks before
we came to the beach,

Amy paid a great deal of money
to visit a well-known psychic.

The woman has a
long waiting list,

but someone pulled
a few strings.

And not long after
getting the idea,

Amy had her session, which
took place over the phone

and lasted for an hour.

She sent me a brief email
after it was over, and went

into greater detail as we rode
with Gretchen from the Raleigh

airport to Emerald Isle the
day before Thanksgiving.

'So start again from the
top,' I said. 'Was it scary?'

'It was maybe like calling
someone in prison and having

one person after another get
on the line,' she said from

the backseat.

'First I talked to
mom for a while, who's

doing well, by the
way, and takes credit

for setting up you and Hugh.

Then Tiffany appeared.'

I ripped open a bag of
almonds. 'Yeah, right.'

'Ordinarily, I'd be like
that too,' Amy said,

'but the psychic's voice
changed after mom went away.

She sounded tough
all of a sudden,

and started by saying,
"I don't really feel

like talking to you right now.

This is a favor, OK?"' Tiffany
thanked Amy for cleaning up

the mess she'd left after
she'd committed suicide.

'That's strange,'
I said. 'I mean,

how would the psychic
know anything about that?'

Amy sat up and moved
closer so that her head was

between my seat and
Gretchen's. 'I know.

She said that Tiffany had tried
to kill herself before--' also

true--

'and that she always knew
she was going to do this.

The only question was when.

It was crazy how
much she got right.

"Your sister was
mentally ill," she said.

"Possibly bipolar, and
stopped taking her medication

because she didn't
want to dull herself."

She said Tiffany felt like
everyone was taking from her,

using her.'

'That was certainly
true,' I said.

'Most of what Tiffany had to say
was directed at you,' Amy told

me.

'She wants you to know that
the two of you are OK now,

and that she's not mad anymore.'

'She's not mad?' I said. 'Her?

I'm the one who had
reason to be mad.'

'She said she'd
misunderstood you,

and that lately she's
been working on herself.'

'You have to work on
yourself after you're dead?'

I asked.

It seemed a bit
much, like having

to continue a diet, or
your participation in AA.

I thought that death
let you off the hook

when it came to certain things.

That it somehow purified you.

'Tiffany's been hanging
out a lot with mom's dad,

Grandpa Leonard,' Amy told me.

This made me furious
for some reason.

'But she didn't even know him!'

'I guess they met
there,' Amy said.

'And where's that?'

Amy shrugged.

'I don't know.

It's not like you can
ask 1,000 questions

and get them answered.

They tell you what they want to
tell you and you just listen.'

I tried to let that sink in.

'She and mom are finally
getting along,' Amy continued.

'She mainly wanted
to let you know

that she has no hard feelings.

The psychic said Tiffany's
been trying to tell you this

herself, and asked if you've
had a lot of problems with

your phone lately.'

'No.' 'Power outages?'

Again, I said no.

'What about butterflies?'
'Are you serious?'

I asked.

'Our house last winter
was loaded with them.

I've never seen
anything like it.

In the summer, fine,
but this was crazy.

Hugh and I talked
about it every day.'

Amy crossed her arms.

'It was Tiffany.

She was trying to contact you.'

The appointment with the psychic
had unnerved the whole family.

'Tiffany was calmer
than normal, but still,

it was like an actual
conversation with her,' Amy

said.

'You remember how
those were, right?

We'd be shaking while
they were going on.

Then we'd think about
them for weeks afterward.'

'I remember,' Gretchen and
I said at the same time.

After Tiffany signed off,
Amy spoke to an actor

she had known who died
of a heroin overdose

a few years back.

And then to her first
serious boyfriend,

John Tsokantis, who had a
brain aneurysm when he was 25.

Because she had had a
session so recently,

I was welcome to cut to
the front of the line

and have one of my own
the following week.

'Do you want me to give
you the psychic's number?'

I said nothing.

'Is that a no?'

Amy asked.

Often, while signing books, I
will pretend to have powers.

'Well, look at the Scorpio,'
I'll say when someone

approaches my table.

I'm just guessing.

Wouldn't know a Scorpio
from a double Sagittarius.

The key, I learned, is
to speak with authority.

It's never, are you a Libra?

But rather, it's about time
I had a Libra up in here.

Every now and then
I'll be right,

and the person will be shocked.

'How did you know my sign?'

They'll ask.

'Same way I know
you have a sister.'

If I'm right about the sister as
well, the person I'm talking to

will become like a cat
released into a new setting.

Very low to the
ground and suspicious.

'Who were you talking to?

Did one of my friends
put you up to this?'

I met a young woman
a few years back,

and after being right about
both her sign and her sister,

I said, as if I were trying to
recall something I had dreamed,

'you were in a hospital
earlier this week.

Not for yourself,
but for someone else.

You-- you were visiting
someone very close to you.'

The woman fell apart
before my very eyes.

'My-- my mother has cancer.

They operated.

But how do you--

I don't-- what are you doing?'

'I can't help it,' I told her.

'I know things.

I see them.'

I don't, of course.

Those were just guesses
pulled out of my ass

in order to get a
rise out of someone.

Hugh said the psychic Amy
went to did the same thing,

but I'm not sure.

How would she have known
what Tiffany sounded like?

'Looked her up on
YouTube,' he said.

'Read one of your stories.

These people tell you
what you want to hear.

It's their way of getting
you to come back.'

There's something about
picking the psychic apart

that I don't like.

It's cynical and uninteresting.

That said, I knew I didn't
want to book a session.

My mother and I were very close,
and though I miss her terribly,

I'm not sure I need
to talk to her again.

Since her death, I thought
of it as an impossibility.

Now, it felt like a decision,
like mom wants to speak to me

and I'm saying no.

But what if she's angry
at me for some reason?

What do I do with that?

As for Tiffany, a few
months after she died,

a Dutch film crew came to
Sussex and followed me around

for three days.

Our conversation was
all over the place.

We talked about England,
writing, life with Hugh.

The last hour was shot on a
hilltop overlooking my house.

The interviewer, a man
named Wim, sat beside me.

Off camera, he'd mentioned
that my sister had recently

taken her life.

Now he brought it up again.

'What if you could
ask her one question?'

It seemed like such
a television moment.

The intimacy unearned--
grotesque, almost.

And so I paused
and blinked hard.

Then I said, 'I'd ask, can I
have back that money I loaned

you?'

What troubled me most about
Amy's talk with the psychic

was the notion that the
dead are unsettled--

that they linger.

I said to Lisa at the
beach that Thanksgiving,

'if they can see us
from wherever they are,

what's to stop them from
watching us on the toilet?'

Lisa took a moment
to consider this.

'I'm guessing that certain
places are just off limits.'

'And who would make
them off limits?'

I asked.

'I don't know,' she said.

'God, maybe?

I mean, beats me.'

We were returning
from a walk, and came

upon our father in the
middle of the street

a quarter mile from the house.

He was dressed in jeans and
had a flat top cap on his head.

His flannel shirt was
untucked, and the tail of it

drooped from beneath the
hem of his windbreaker.

'What are you doing here?'

I asked.

'Looking for someone,' he said.

Lisa asked who, and he
said he didn't know.

'I was just hoping that someone
might come along and invite me

to his house to watch the game.

The Panthers are
playing this afternoon,

and you don't have
a goddamn TV.'

'You thought someone was
just going to say, hey,

why don't you come to my place
and watch some football?'

Lisa asked.

'I was going to build up to
it,' my father said. 'You know,

drop hints and so forth.'

The day after Thanksgiving was
bright and unseasonably warm.

Hugh made ham sandwiches for
lunch, and we ate on the deck.

'We need to have a code word so
when the next one of us dies,

we'll know if the psychic
is for real,' Amy said.

She turned to Dad, the
most likely candidate

for ceasing to live.

'What'll yours be?'

He gave it no thought.

'Ecstasy.' 'Like the drug?'

I asked.

He picked up a
sandwich. 'What drug?'

'It should be something
you say a lot,' I told him.

'Something that would let
us know it's really you.

Maybe "you've gained
weight," or "Obama's from

Kenya."' 'Those are both
three words,' Lisa noted.

'What about Broderson,' I said,
referring to a North Carolina

painter whose work my father
collected in the 1970s.

'Oh, that's perfect.'

Amy said.

I went to the kitchen to get
another napkin, and by the time

I returned, the
topic had changed

and Dad was discussing
someone who goes to his gym.

The guy is in his 40s,
and apparently stands

too close in the locker room.

'He undresses me with
his eyes and it makes me

uncomfortable,' my father said.

'How does someone undress
you with his eyes when

you're already undressed?'

I ask.

'By that point,
what's he looking at?

Your soul?'

On our final evening at the
beach over the Thanksgiving

weekend, Amy and my
niece Madeline usually

host a spa night.

They dress in uniforms and
let it be known beforehand

that clients are expected
to tip, and generously.

Facials are given, and
Kathy offers foot massages.

The treatments feel
great, but the best part

is listening to Amy, who plays
the role of the supervisor.

This year, while massaging
clay into my father's face,

she asked him if he
was alone this evening

or with his gay lover.

'I know that a lot of men
such as yourself also like

their testicles
waxed,' Amy said.

'If that is of any
interest to you,

sir, I can get my trainee,
Madeline, right on it.

Maddie, are you up for this?'

It's so subversive,
not just insisting

that our father is gay, but that
his 12-year-old granddaughter

might want to rip the
hair off his balls.

Before the clay is
rubbed into our faces,

we're outfitted in shower caps.

And afterword,
while it dries, we

lie back with cucumber
slices on our eyes.

Paul programs his iPad
to play spa music,

or what passes for
music in such places.

The sound of a waterfall,
or rustling leaves.

A whale saying something
nice to another whale.

A harp.

This year, I lifted the
cucumbers off my eyes

and saw Lisa and Dad stretched
out like corpses, fast asleep.

Paul was out as
well, and Gretchen,

whose legs were shin-deep
in the warm whirling bath,

was getting there.

It seems there was a
perfectly good explanation

for all the butterflies
in our Sussex house

the previous winter.

From what I'd read
since Amy brought it up,

they flew in through our
windows in early autumn,

then passed into a
kind of hibernation.

Hugh and I were away until
right before Christmas,

and when we returned and cranked
up the heat, the butterflies--

mainly tortoise shells,
dozens and dozens of them--

awoke, wrongly believing
that spring had arrived.

They were on all
the second floor

windows, batting against the
panes, desperate to get out.

As symbols go, they're
a bit too sweet.

Right for Lisa, but
all wrong for Tiffany,

who'd have been
better represented

by something more dynamic.

Crows, maybe.

Two big ones flew down
the chimney of my office

that winter and tore the
place apart, systematically

overturning and then shitting
on everything I cared about.

What, I wondered, placing the
cucumbers back over my eyes,

would my symbol be?

The last time I saw
my sister Tiffany

was at the stage door at
Symphony Hall in Boston.

I just finished a show and was
getting ready to sign books

when I heard her say, 'David!

David, it's me.'

We hadn't spoken in four
years at that point,

and I was shocked
by her appearance.

Tiffany always looked like
my mother when she was young.

Now she looked
like my mother when

she was old, though at
the time, she couldn't

have been more than 45.

'It's me, Tiffany.'

She held up a paper bag with
the Starbucks logo on it.

Her shoes looked like she'd
found them in a trash can.

'I have something for you.'

There was a security guard
holding the stage door open,

and I said to him, 'will
you close that, please?'

I had filled the
house that night.

I was in charge.

Mr. Sedaris.

'The door,' I repeated.

'I'd like for you
to close it now.'

And so the man did.

He shut the door in
my sister's face,

and I never saw her
or spoke to her again.

Not when she was evicted
from her apartment.

Not when she was raped.

Not when she was hospitalized
after her first suicide

attempt.

She was, I told myself,
someone else's problem.

I couldn't deal
with her anymore.

'Well, the rest of my family
said, 'it was Tiffany.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

We all know how she can be.'

Perhaps like the psychic,
they were just telling me

what I needed to hear.

Something to ease my
conscience, and make me

feel that underneath it all, I'm
no different from anyone else.

They've always done
that for me, my family.

It's what keeps me coming back."