(Valentine’s Day Friday, 2014) I have purchased a house from an elderly woman. I think her husband has passed away. She does not want to sell, but she is too old to take care of the place now.
It is the house in Fridley where I grew up. I don’t really want it; I prefer my house on Circle Park because of its large, private lot. I have no fond memories of the Fridley house, either. My parents drank. They were neglectful and abusive to us and to each other.
So I miss my Circle Park house but I have to make the best of the situation. Fortunately I have a guide to help me get through the emotional pain. She hovers slightly behind me and to my right, like a translucent golden angel from a Pre-Raphaelite painting. It’s my sister Jo. She holds her full lips near my ear. She whispers her support firmly and constantly. I can feel her pretty warm face nested in my flowing hair. I feel sad, but protected.
Like a new owner, I inspect the house, starting in the basement. The rooms are all full to bursting with stuff. It’s the home of two pack rats who never could sort through the stacks or stop their hoarding behavior. Unable to let a single thing go. I am very disturbed and frustrated that the task of reduction is left to me. I experience the unfairness of it, deeply.
I walk up the stairs and turn left into the living room at the front of the house. Hardwood floors are covered with old-fashioned wood and glass display cases holding boxes and boxes of firearm ammunition. Ammo store, store of ammo. It’s frightening. I know this is the first room that needs to be cleared so I visualize the emptied room in my mind.
I turn back toward the kitchen. Now Jo levitates behind my left shoulder and speaks into my left ear. It’s my childhood kitchen, not the great room addition that was built after I left home. One of the wall tiles pops off and falls to the floor.
I open the side door and step out. Jo introduces me to my mother, who is standing on the stoop. In the dream my mother is an ancient, dark-haired Slav who speaks only broken English. She’s a hag and I’m about to dismiss her when my sister shows me one of my mother’s intriguing sculptures.
The artwork employs a technique lost to time. I can’t figure out how it is done. She creates a mold that seems like it is crafted from leather and then fills it, maybe with clay. I’m amazed and impressed by her artistry. The pieces are haunting, mysterious, and look a little like the Bog People found near old Celtic settlements. But because of the language barrier between us I will never be able to understand her process.
Then I notice a spare and wizened cedar tree growing very close to the house, to the right of the door (to my left, as I face the door). The cedar has the appearance of the twisted old Witch Tree that grows out of the rocks overlooking Lake Superior near Grand Portage. Sacred tree. Magically surviving in the most barren of soils.
This dream tree has a single long and heavy bough that reaches left along the roof line of my house. Like a protective arm. The shape of the tree is an inverted L, or a gallows.
Day notes:
Yesterday I dug up a photo of Jo and me sitting under the Christmas tree when I was 3 and she was 2. My mother dressed us as twins, even though we looked nothing alike.
I also sometimes dream of Chris’ aunt Jo, who has protected this house by way of the inheritance she left us. Jo fell into dementia after the death of her partner Lucias.
Cedar trees’ symbolic meaning include healing, cleansing and rituals of protection. The shape of the tree reminds me of the Hanged Man card in the tarot, the card of sacrifice and letting go. Tao Te Ching: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
My great grandparents on my father’s side were Czech. But I think the language my dream mother speaks is a different Slavic tongue.
On one of the 15 below zero mornings the tiles on our kitchen floor made a loud bang. Twelve of the tiles popped up, away from the subfloor, and created a little teepee next to the dining room table.
Twin qualities of Circle Park and Fridley houses:
- Both ramblers are built on a hill
- Both are located one block from a small lake
- Both lakes have a government structure (prison/school) and a nature preserve on the western shore. Both lakes have a public beach
- Both houses were built with an underground garage
- Both were in the path of the 1965 tornadoes but survived
- Both sit next to a city park (playground/softball fields)
- Circle Park is on a one-way street, Fridley is on a dead-end street
- Both have a white birch tree located near a steep set of stairs (stone/concrete)
- Circle Park has a tuxedo cat named Lola, Fridley had a tuxedo cat named Boots