In this morning’s terrible dream… I was wandering around the house where my mom and her sisters grew up. My grandparents lived there until I was 10. My dad was standing outside with his hands in his pockets, gruffly waiting for me and my sister to come out, the way he always waits for us to come out of the bathroom on a trip somewhere. In front of the house was a littlel model of the house, and a painting of it, as if my grandfather had put them there to declare his pride in having the house at all.
We walked around the house choosing objects to take. After we left it would be an estate sale and everything would be gone.
It was terrible to walk through the house and look at small things, trinkets, and try to decide. I spent a long while staring at the glass-topped table which used to have mementos of my aunt’s (first) wedding. The wooden nut bowl… these porcelain things… the lamp with pompoms… my grandma’s sewing things. The stuff on her dresser. At some point I realized it was a dream and though I knew I didn’t want any of these things, I made myself walk around the house and remember it and its objects as best I could. My sister was there taking things too big for her to carry, or things that were terribly fragile – she was only 5 or 6 in my dream. A huge mirror, a porcelain horse, and the pompom lamp… I’d come to parts of the house that I didn’t remember well, nebulous swirling questions, and feel upset.
I woke up crying and thinking of the little silver box I got from my great-grandma that I figured was some catholic thing or else maybe just a fancy candy box. I used to keep my earrings in it, and then later, whatever scrapings of weed I had hoarded up. Now I think it’s gone in the robbery from our old rental house along with most of my other small mementos including the cedarwood box of small gifts and dried flowers from past girlfriends and boyfriends.