A couple of night’s ago, I dreamed that my parents were moving back into our old house in on Pennsylvania Ave. I’m not sure why, but in the dream we were slowly moving everything back in that we had moved out in 1985, even down to the same furniture...bunk beds for me and my sister, a horrible green vinyl rocking chair, my white eyelet bedspread. I dream about that house a lot, in fact nearly as often as I dream of my grandmother’s house. They both seem to me like lost places (...places you can’t return to, or that wouldn’t be the same even if you tried.) This house, unlike my grandmother’s is at least still standing, but it seems just as lost to me. In the dream, suddenly we were back in it, and while it was exactly the same on the outside, the same mint green siding, the same front door, same iron eagle above the garage... inside it had been remodeled with wide, white rooms and modern fixtures. I was searching for something in the dream along the wood work, looking for my initial scratched there. It was a ridiculously small house, two bedrooms that we soon outgrew. In the dream though, it felt like we were reclaiming something we had lost. Maybe, because it’s truly the first place I can really remember living.
In the dreams about my grandmother's house, I am always reclaiming it, cleaning it, fixing things and making them liveable again. The house was torn down when I was in high school, but when I dream about it, it's simply been abandoned for years (my cousins lived there for awhile, but tore it down to build a new house.) I am always trying to convince myself to stay there, and usually I make interesting discoveries, like hardwood floors beneath the carpet and french doors covered in curtains (things that weren't exactly there..)
I'm not sure which issues these dreams are working out..whether its an inability to let go of the past or a borderline disturbing desire to redecorate everything..
(Now that I think about it, this reminds me of this poem from few years ago..)
