Dreams of home

Living at Grandma's house...continues in my dreams. From the time I was three, her home was my home at various times. Seven years of my growing up were spent at 7518 SE Milwaukie Ave, and a bit more later on, under her care. She took many of us under her wing over the years. The list also includes each of her adult children, my cousin, my brother, friends of the family, the many foreign students she housed and nurtured in the 70's, and at the very least a peacock or two. This home was hers and ours until we couldn't any more.

Sadly, the house no longer exists. It has been starkly replaced by a 10 condo structure so unlike the verdant, fruitful lot surrounding her worn in Dutch Colonial that this new imposition seems disorientingly untrue. There are no welcoming roses at the curb, no interesting persimmon tree drawing in intrigued passersby, no front steps leading to that door framing so many of our photos. There is a thin strip of barkdust behind the new parking area. This craziness sits atop where once were rooted figs, apricots, peaches, pecans, apples, quince, pie cherries, red currant, asian pears, plums, blueberries, thornless blackberries, kiwi, grapes, salal, raspberries, boysenberries, ground cherries, blackcaps, paw paw, rosemary, and of course persimmon. All this cultivation, ripeness, richness, variety, echoed Grandma's mind, history, and personality.

This space, this home, this feel, this rich architecture, continues to be the setting of my dreams. I am constantly surprised that Grandma's house is so firmly fixed in my dreamworld! Is it that much at my core? Will the backdrop for my unconcious mental machinations be rooted in this house forevermore? In my dreams I still find new rooms, floors and wings to the house. Dramas unfold in the kitchen, people need to be managed in the living room, we live out of the bedrooms, Grandma's things still need to be looked through in the basement. Home lives on in my dreams.