Dreamscapes and Home

I find myself in a house that I frequent more and more often in the land of my dreams. I know without knowing how I know that it was given to me by my grandad. There are still cherished photos of my granny and grandad on the walls, as well as different knick-knacks and what-nots that I remember Granny showing such a fondness for. Some of the details of the house have changed since I last dreamt of it though. Mark is with me in this dream and I say to him, “They turned the fireplace into an aquarium.” What had been a fireplace in my last dream (and still looked like a fireplace, kind of) had been hollowed out, some of the bricks removed, and heavy glass had been installed and turned into a large salt-water aquarium teeming with fish. The house is an old one, multi-storied with huge windows around the entire ground story. There is a porch encircling the house on all but one side. I walk through the house with Mark, taking in all the tiny details. For some reason, it looks like the house was shut up decades ago, almost preserved, waiting for me to come in and breathe new life into the old place. But I know that cannot be right or else how could “they” have turned the fireplace into a fish aquarium. Granny’s clothes still hang in one of the closets. Mumu dresses in sky blue, lavender, and green. None seem to show the signs of age or an accumulation of dust. I stare at a photo of Granny and Grandad and almost get the feeling that they are looking back at me. This must have been Granny’s room. Her Avon bottles still sit on their shelf, all from a time when it was fashionable for perfume bottles to resemble people, animals, and various objects. I pick up my favorite. It is a clear glass bottle in the shape of an old car, still containing some of the perfume which had originally come in it. Placing it back down, I continue my appraisal of the house and its contents. I gently brush my fingers against the velvet painting of Elvis in his white jumpsuit while he was still skinny – Granny and I both shared a love of that painting. Now, it seems that it is mine, if only in this dreamscape where I have somehow inherited those things treasured most by my grandparents and a house I have never seen in my waking life. I discover hidden rooms in this perplexing house. Rooms where there should not have been rooms. And here, I find Mark again as well. These rooms were not here in my last dream either. The furnishings look to be from the late sixties or early seventies, all retro-styled and in deep natural colors; tangerine and avocado and mud. I walk back into the room which had once contained a fireplace and now there is an old hot-tub covered by a tarp close to the now-aquarium. As I pull the tarp away from the hot-tub, I see that wasps and spiders have made their homes inside. It is at this precise moment that I am pulled from the dream and into a new day and whatever comes my way.