(Sunday, December 8, 2013) I am giving my sister-in-law Kathy Day a tour of my house. The house was constructed before the time of power tools. The wooden floor boards are thick and roughly hewn (I can see the trail of saw blades in the wood), but the house itself is finely crafted with loving care.
We take in the rooms on the lower floor, which are flooded with light. I remember entering a black and white kitchen with large, square windows that look out on the countryside. The rest of the rooms have faded from memory.
We walk up an enclosed staircase to the second level, which is darker than the first. Our bodies seem to emit a glowing light, which is how we navigate the dusky chambers. Or perhaps a light follows us from room to room. Door trim stained in magenta and covered in a varnish that shines like translucent gold catches my eye. It’s more an oil painter’s technique than a carpenter’s trick. I tell Kathy this color is something I applied many years ago.
We walk into a hallway and find a porcelain-coated cooking stove stored against the wall. It might be from the 1920s. I tell Kathy I remember preparing meals on it. We turn a corner and find an even earlier stove, maybe from the middle of the nineteenth century, one I also remember. We move from room to room. At this point I must become lucid, because I realize that the number of rooms is infinite and that even the most ancient items appear new and luminous. This must be the house of my past lives. Or maybe the house of all my lives. I’m not surprised but I wonder why Kathy is with me.
Day notes:
It’s a simple enough dream, but the reason I want to record it is that the colors in the second level were multidimensional and shimmered in an exquisite way. The sense of loving craft was alive in the house.
My current kitchen is black and white and magenta, in a vintage late 50s style. It houses a growing collection of handmade dishes and objects by local and national ceramic artists.
Kathy and I have been mistaken for blood sisters. The last time she was at my house was when Chris was in a coma.
Another past lives dream. I love the descriptions of the stoves and the door trim. This dream feels very intimate. Remembering the kitchen and then the stoves is interesting. Some nurturing going on?