[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.
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?