Of Houses and Dreams

The house we live in is too big for Michael and me as a living space, but it’s just right for our family as “home.” The place we stay in the summer is similarly a good family space, and perfect as a vacation perch, and too small for Michael and me as a permanent living place. We spend time, now and then, talking about what a right-sized space for the two of us would be, still allowing for family space, for the era (whenever it might be) that we downsize a bit from where we are now. It will be a while, because our house is so much “home” to the whole family, but still, it’s fun to imagine an us-centric space that fits our needs better than the space we rattle in a bit right now.  That would, of course, have a great kitchen, a dining room, places I could sit in the sunshine inside and out, replicate features we love about where we are now, like woodwork and the washer-dryer near the bedrooms, a shared study space (but room for a bigger desk surface for me and a way to have two monitors!!!!!), some good storage (but not too much so I would have to pare down a bit), probably space for dogs to run (though, will we get more after these two run out??) and it would also have guest spaces with their own bathrooms insulated from our sleeping space a bit. Would we build? Would we find an old building being rehabbed that suits us? Michael has always wanted to design and an energy-efficient house built into a berm, for example, though that seems like a pretty big undertaking at our stage of life. Still, it’s fun to daydream, since we’re glued where we are for the foreseeable future.

Periodically, I night-dream about houses and space too, usually revisiting the same places across the years. There’s a modern house we inhabit in some of these dreams (really unlike anything we’ve ever lived in), and an old barn inside which we are constructing rooms, and even floors. That one seems far more likely to me than the modern one, but who knows what my subconscious is trying to tell me?  The really modern one has a great infinity-edged swimming pool, and occasionally an out-of-style country manor house library/ballroom. That’s always strange. Last night, it was a new space, the first time in years I’ve dreamed outside the usual repertoire. This one was an old boarding school going out of business we’d bought. We seem to have been summering there for a while in a rehabbed wing for a family (house parents???) and there are two other local families (not people we know well at all, just acquaintances) who also had been summering there, who have signed long-term leases to contribute to the payments. I was touring some of the scores of bedrooms that were the dorms and thinking about possibilities. There sure was LOTS of space in this “house.” Strange dream.

Back to struggling with the book.  Cheers.