Memories of a Home
When I was small, we moved. A lot. My mother would decorate a house top to bottom, and then after three or four years, sometimes less, she'd get itchy feet and would need to do it again.
The house that I remember best, the house I loved the most, was a grand old gabled manse in the leafy streets of London's Hampstead. It had a sweeping gravel driveway, a gorgeous oak-panelled staircase, and a kitchen that was bright and cosy, warmed day and night by the large Aga at one end.
I loved every part of that house. The Red Room, with it's roaring fires and small television that disappeared behind closet doors; the Blue Room with it's pretty panelling and French doors onto the terrace; my bedroom, with yellow Laura Ashley wallpaper and small desk under the window.
For years and years I dreamed about that house. I would wake up having dreamed I had bought it back, or discovered I was still living in it, and feel flooded with joy and relief at still having the place I have always thought of as home.
Three years ago, when Beloved and I were in London, we knocked on the door, and the very sweet people who now live there let us come in and walk around. It is still a wonderful house, and much the same as I remembered it, but the best thing of all about re-visiting it, was that since that day, I haven't dreamed about it at all. It truly was as if in being able to say goodbye, I got closure.
Instead I find myself, these past five years, dreaming incessantly about Middleduck Farm. This was the lovely antique farmhouse in Litchfield that I bought, then quickly abandoned when my marriage broke up. I adored living there; loved the quirks that come with living in an old house; loved the peace and quiet; even loved the scratching that emanated from within the walls at night: creatures that were scrabbling away seemed to me endearing rather than frightening. I baked lots of bread, made lots of jam, and built toasty fires in the 18th Century fireplace in the den in the original part of the house.
When my marriage broke down, I felt I had no choice but abandon the house. What had been a haven of warmth, became cold and unwelcoming, and much too overwhelming for me on those weekends when the Smalls were with their father. I left to rent a small beach cottage, and visited only another two or three times, to gather up things I needed. I found a lovely woman who would open the house when potential buyers came over; lighting fires and scented candles; popping cinnamon buns in the oven and turning on all the lights to make it feel like a house that was loved.
It sold quickly, and I have only driven past since then, three or four times. In my waking hours, I rarely think about it, but when I am asleep my dreams are flooded with Middleduck Farm. I dream, regularly, that I discover, quite by chance, that I hadn't in fact sold it, and the farm still belongs to me. I usually determine to keep it as a weekend home, and I am always filled with delight at this unexpected treasure, and relief.
Just as with the Hampstead house I loved, I didn't say goodbye. I have moved on; am blissfully happy with everything about my life today, but I will not stop dreaming about Middleduck until I have closure. Things are rarely as good in real life as they are in your dreams, and this perhaps is the reason why I have to go. It isn't a dream unfulfilled. It's just a house. A lovely one, but one that wasn't right for me.
