The Warehouse

The colours reminded me of a cheap eighties disco, in nauseating pale greens and sickly pinks, alternated with a stale, damp darkness. It was weird, because I did not feel ill at ease. On the contrary, I felt right at home. As it turned out, I realized, I was home. I was in the hallway of the cavernous apartment building I was living in with my husband and son. I smiled. That was OK, I was just dreaming anyway I figured out with relief. How did we get here? It seemed we were a couple of years into the future. We were waiting for one of the shaky elevators to take us to our apartment on the second floor. The apartment looked like a warehouse storage space. It was a large, tall ceiling ed one room space, with tall windows way up, that allowed us to see a rather spectacular red sunset as we walked into what apparently was our home. All the sounds seemed magnified. I remember whispering to my husband and son : " Are you guys hungry?" as I looked around to what semblance of a kitchen there was in a modest sink and stove against one of the walls. There was a big rectangular table in the middle of the room,with a cheerful dark red cloth with fringes, and there was a simple glass vase with a big bunch of daisies on the table. My husband loved to bring me daisies, it must be summer in my dream. The room was cool, pleasantly so, and the tall open window brought in the sweet scent of a warm evening. The beds were neatly arranged against the wall opposite the window, and behind a  curtain under the window was a door, leading to a closet size bathroom that to my relief had a shower with a tiny window. I heard a frog through the small window opening, there must be a pond in the back ,or a creek. I realized that something major must have happened for us to live here now, instead of in our cozy home with its spacious garden and greenhouse and pool. I was glad I was dreaming, but relieved we were all together, as apparently our son was living with us. The atmosphere was one of a dystopian melancholy and silence. I woke up and understood that the silence in the house was rivaling the silence in my dream. It was later in the morning now, and most of the birds were quiet. The silence in our street can be heavy, like when my cat sits on my chest. Not unpleasant, just a bit disconcerting. Over the years, the silence brought about by losing my family, my clan, has moved from frightening to oppressive, to the point where I am now, a place of acceptance, of solace, almost a sacred place, where there are large spaces for my soul to breathe and roam. My dreams seem to have become an extension of that space, a place where I do not feel alone, but rather a part of everything, from the sky to the trees, the wind, the bird songs, and whatever people wander into that dream space, often friends and loved ones both from the past and present. And a fair number of strangers, who seem to populate both the past and what seems, the future. My dreams make me realize we are all part of everything. Our loneliness is caused by the loss of understanding and the loss of the knowledge that we are all connected, whether we are gathered in bunches, or alone. I am no more alone than the stars are or the frogs croaking in the creeks behind our property are alone. To realize this, to feel this down into my bones, fills me with elation and a deep sense of both happiness and belonging. So, I smiled broadly as I woke up in my bed in our very quiet house with my still sleeping son in his room down the hall as I listened to a solitary bird finishing up the concert of bird songs I had fallen asleep to, my heart feeling grateful for the luxury of a nap with my cat and dog on a day where my son did not have to go to work or class. The small house felt graciously open, relaxed, like it was a large space in the middle of a capacious, friendly meadow, as I effortlessly stepped from my dreamworld into my waking reality, anticipating a cozy late breakfast with my son. The space and silence all around me felt like a large, loose diaphanous robe, airy, filling every cell of my being with the relaxed easy feel of its silky touch.