Stairway dream

Sunday night -- or, given how late I went to bed, Monday morning -- I had another old house/stairway dream. There’s variations, of course, but they all revolve around a Victorian/Gothic-y house, usually that’s run-down, abandoned, and/or about to be torn down. The stairs are never the main, front staircase: they’re always the smaller, back staircase; and they’re always old-fashioned (lotsa wood!). The stairs lead to an attic, or have a secret room in the wall somewhere alongside. And they always seems strangely familiar, like (even though I know I’m dreaming) it’s modeled after a real place that I’ve been to.

This one (briefly!) had a narrow stairway going up to an attic; the partial flight right before the attic level was missing the stairs, but instead had a ill-connected plywood sheet connecting the landing where I stood to the attic level; along the wall was several shelves of books, just out of reach.

Had another one way back where the house was out in the farmlands in Fife, where I once roomed with Old Roommate. But when (in my dream) I tried to return, I couldn’t find the place, even though I knew round-about where the house was.


I think these dreams stem from a few real-life sources. For quite a while, now, I’ve always liked mysterious staircases, small, quirky rooms, and such. In one of the reading rooms at a library at the University of Washington, there’s a small spiral staircase that goes up to some former bell-tower. There was red three-story house in Everett that I’d occasionally go out of my way to drive past, back when I was single, had a crummy income, and could never afford a house. (I think I stumbled across it while taking a shortcut back from my sister’s husband’s parents.) My paternal grandparents’ house has a nifty little staircase leading to the two attic bedrooms upstairs -- similar to stairs and two small bedrooms in the Ballard house that J-Nezumi and a few other folks rented way long ago. And the sun-protective clothing place that I worked at for a few summers had a back stairway that went up to the top floor empty warehouse section, with lovely reverberation -- I used to play my acoustic guitar up there during my lunch breaks.

The funny thing is, I won’t have any of this in real life. Maybe my dreams are somehow balancing this, or compensating. The Lady and I both have always wanted a Victorian-style house -- tall and narrow, with pointy roofs and turrets and bay windows. And we ain’t gonna have it: not the local sort of architecture; wouldn’t work well in this climate (you’d roast on the top floor!); better to not have stairs just in case of mobility issues as you age; and just plain can’t afford it. So, we’re having just a plain, flat house -- on a flat concrete slab. (Not even a basement: water table’s too high, I think. Just isn’t done ‘round these parts.)

Ah well. Maybe when I’m 50 or 60, we can afford for me to build a fake lighthouse in the back yard.

--GG