Friday, March 1, 2013

When a home changes hands in a dream


[Marz took this photo of me asleep (on our new orange couch).]

Since my mother's suicide in 2002, I have repeatedly dreamed of going back to her old apartment--the one by the lake, where she was happy for a few years, not the one she died in. 

It's always a bittersweet visit:
she's always dead in this dream (not necessarily the case in other dreams), but her apartment is a curiosity cabinet, still full of wonderful little things for picking up: objects of milk- or sapphire-colored glass, smooth river rocks, or something woven from wool picked off barb-wire fences.

Wicker baskets on the floor are full of clippings and handwritten letters, books and magazines, places to read marked with ribbons.  

Sometimes I take a few things for myself.

Last night I dreamed I was there again, and for the first time in ten years, the landlord was also there, getting the place ready for new renters. 
I was amazed, but I also wondered why it hadn't happened sooner. 

Most of my mother's things were gone.
Knowing it might be my last visit, I took a knife whose blade folded up, like a switchblade, into its blue stone handle. (Not something she ever owned.)

If a home changes hands in a dream, is it forever?