06.29
I once again return to the house of my youth. Older still, as I am now. Inside is still different, still familiar. Things out of place here and there. Stairways to new spaces, rooms too short, rooms to tall. Unopened doors, doors to closets, doors to areas unknown, perhaps even other dreams. Its all so undeniably strange but undeniably mine. It is also my sisters house, who now shares the space with me.
We have taken ownership of it. Our parents since moved, mother once here, just left. Father nowhere to be found. No strangers this time, no friends, only my sister and I. We stand there remarking on what to do with all this, though somehow she is silent during the process.
I survey the house.
Taking notice of the curious stairs and disorienting layout, I focus on the unusually low ceilings first. They have to go first I think to myself. The ceiling, just prior we were trying to hang a fixture from it, to no avail. It was weak paneling. I option to tear it all down. Regardless of what wiring or insulation might be hiding behind it. The room needed to be open, needed space to breathe. It needed high ceilings to give the floors something to aspire to, something to reach for.
The ceilings were coming down.
I move to the new staircases that led to seemingly nowhere. As I start to ascend, just before reaching the top, I am suddenly in my old room. Physics and reality obviously have no place in dreams.
In the room my sister is again with me, again given to silence, though somehow we continue to communicate. I notice the walls right away. Notice the ugly wallpaper and how they seem false, somehow offset from a true wall.
I move closer.
I notice a separate wall hanging down, a panel, creating an optical illusion of sorts. Wedged between this and the wall are insignificant items, toys and a disproportionate amount of clothes. I pull them down, clear them away and remove the hanging panel. Again im staring at the unsightly wall. Again not satisfied with what I see. The wallpaper, poor craftsmanship, brittle material. I drive my hands through the wall, striking until I make a considerable hole. I do this not in anger, not in frustration. I do this with determination, curiosity, deliberate pace. Another false wall is being removed before me, piece by crumbling piece, revealing even more clothes. Clothes piling up around me, once stuffed behind the wall, now spilling out.
I look at the mess before me, some actual clothes from my youth, some not, the rest perhaps mine from another dream or reality. I turn to my sister again, sitting in a pile of her own, I tell her im throwing it all away. Dont need it, dont want it anymore and I couldnt wear them anyways.
I contiune digging through the seemingly endless amounts of clothes behind the false wall, tossing them over my shoulder in amazement of how much there was hiding back there. Before I am able to reach the end I am pulled back to the waking world, or the reality that I now write this in, by the calls of my sister. She is leaving her own house, where I am visiting, to go out for the afternoon.
I tell her, excited, about the dream, looking for some insight, some perspective.
“Mom and dad had alot of shit in that house.”
Not quite the enlightened response I was hoping for, but true nonetheless. She was busy and mind in many places at the time. I forgive her.
I couldnt help but think how the house, from my dream, wasnt their house, it wasnt their shit in the house, it was mine. Next time im back there, im taking a big ass hammer and everything is coming down.
I will find the real wall behind the clothes.
I will tear it down too.
2009.06.29