In Repose Blog

Our Family's "Container" Part 3

Here is the photograph I snapped while leaving Mrs. Brackman's current house and my own long ago home. On its face it is a very unremarkable image. But to ME, its almost magical. Its not easy to see because of the trees, but this story is about that pink house in the middle, that, and a dream I had when I was 11.

First, a little background: As a child I saw many strange things. (Heck, I still see odd things but, thats a story for another day!) Mostly I saw them when I was alone, playing. Sometimes I saw them when my brother and I were playing together, and yes, he saw them too.  I had many dreams and an active imagination. I still do. (Just ask my husband.)

Sometimes when I was young I would tell my mom of the things I would see or hear or feel. Often, my mother would tell me I was just dreaming or imagining or whatever. She told me what I saw was not real. She would tell me my dreams were just dreams, and their story lines meaningless to reality.

I don't blame my mother for dampening my exuberance in describing some of these fantastic sights and experiences, its what most mothers would do, and rightly so.

But there were a few times I insisted she listen to me about what I saw or dreamed about. I wonder if she remembers this one! When I was about 11, and right before we moved from Kansas to this neighborhood in Florida I had a series of memorable, remarkable dreams.

I would have a dream and, in the next day or two, it would materialize in front of my eyes. It was never a dream about anything big or scary or important. It was almost always a very regular, mundane type of dream that would just happen to me in real life after the fact. It was quite amazing. I never knew which of my dreams would become real, there was no timing to them or special quality...nothing really at all, except they would as a film might, just repeat themselves in front of my eyes just as they had in my dream, much to my utter astonishment.

So back to the story: When my mother and father went ahead to Florida to find a home for us, my brother and I stayed in Kansas with friends. While my parents were gone I had this dream of a house. It was very detailed and I could not wait to tell my mom. I knew it was likely to be one of the precognitive dreams (although at the time I had no word for such a thing) I had been having. I was sure I dreamed about our new home!

My mother called us when they picked out a house. She started to tell me about it over the phone. I stopped her before she even started. I told her that I dreamed about the house and I already knew what it looked like and I was going to prove to her I was having dreams that would come true.  I told her to wait to tell me any details until I told her about the dream I had about our new house.

I described the dream. I said, it was night time and dark. I said, there was a door on the right side of a V shaped roofline where one side was rocks in a jumble and the other was wood with a door, and the door was orange. I said there was a yellow light next to the door and also two similar lights by the garage door. I said there was one square window between these two doors and there was a little brown dog that stayed by the front door and barked. I paused and waited. Then I asked my mom to describe our new house. She did, and of course she described something completely different. Our house, she said, was a white house on a high driveway, with a green door, no dog, an iron porch rail, nothing sounded like my dream at ALL.

I really felt defeated.

I was sure, just sure, that I had dreamed of the place that we were going to live. It was so real, so solid in my mind. I was crushed that I was not describing our house and also that I was not proven accurate with my "wild imagination" and dreams that became reality. But, I got over it.  I had other things to deal with. Leaving my home of 7 years, and my PONY whom I loved more than almost anything, at the age of 11 was not an easy thing to do. I put the dream out of my mind.

Until, that is, we drove up to our new home in Tampa in 1972. It was night time. We walked up the driveway and I got my first look at our new home. I remember being very tired and carrying at least one of our cats in a make-shift carrier of a pillowcase toward the front door. My parents busied themselves looking for the key. I turned around, just at the place where I took this photo and looked at the view from the front porch.

There, directly across the street was the house that I dreamed about. I remember the surprise registering in my belly while taking in the details. It is pink now, and the door is white, but in 1972 that house was brown. It had an orange door, and there was a little brown dog barking wildly that night at our car. He was barking at the new family on the block who just drove in from Kansas and who were bone-weary and unlocking the door to a new life in here in Florida.

As I recall I tried to point out to my mother that the house directly opposite of ours was the house I dreamed about, and the house I told her about.  I don't believe she paid much attention and of course she was tired too, and busy with umpteen other things any adult would be busy with when starting a new life in a new state in a new house.

I kept my thoughts pretty much to myself after that, but I have never, ever stopped paying attention to my dreams.

Our Family's "Container" Part 2

Mrs. Brackman was so kind and welcomed me, an utter stranger with a camera, right into her home, and smiled the entire time. I can't believe its because she remembered what I looked like. Thirty five years tends to change a person, especially if that person was only 12 at the time.

Happily, she was a trusting soul and I walked in, assuring her I would not take up much of her morning. I asked permission and took this photo almost immediately...So quickly as a matter of fact the original suffers a bit from camera shake.

My parents will find the photo interesting in that they can see the house has had some serious upgrades. Where there was once mediocre wall-to-wall shag carpet there now exists lovely tile and deep wood accents. Those stairs used to be carpeted as well. Shag was everywhere, it was the 70's you know.

The first thing I saw in my mind's eye was a late afternoon scene of long ago, the old RCA tv in the corner of the room playing Gilligan's Island or maybe The Brady Bunch Show and me and Randy laying around on the sofa or floor eating Doritos while the afternoon sun beamed in strongly from the patio door there on the right, probably just another day after school. I recalled Randy's laughter and some chasing games around this banister on the left, and generally good and easy times with bikes in the driveway and beach sand in our Keds and friends in the yard and meals on the dining room table behind me.

But then I allowed myself to really look at the stairs. These stairs are really very important to me. They represent proof to me of the soul's ability to exist apart from the human body.

There is a room down these two little stairs to the left. We used it as a den. It was there, 35 years ago where I laid very ill and something amazing happened to me. I blogged about it months ago, in this post called Are You Afraid to Die?

So standing there really was quite a culmination of feelings. This was our family home. This is where I played with my late brother whom I still miss with aching regularity.  This, though, this spot is the physical path my soul journeyed away from my body and absolutely proved to me that I could indeed exist without it, and so assures me that I have every reason to believe that I WILL see my brother again, and we all have a shot at existing without our physical selves.

It happened 35 years ago but I remember every tiny detail as vividly as any other in my life, and I will always believe now, in life after death.

Mrs. Brackman beamed a sweet smile and pat my arm gently as I wiped away the tears from my eyes and swallowed hard and sighed harder.

After thanks and goodbyes and as I walked to the rental car where Lauren was waiting for me I took one final photograph from a very specific place on the front porch. It has to do with another out-of-body experience that I had when I was 11. I will tell you about that one in my next post.

(To be continued...)

Our Family's "Container" Circa 1972

This Tampa Florida house was where my family lived for a short while in 1972-73. I was 11 and 12 years old at the time. My brother was 9 and 10. If you can make out the figures, thats me on the left in the photograph with my dog Toby and my friend Stephanie. The cat in the driveway was named Old Man.  (My dad still owns both of those cars, by the way.)

Traveling to Sarasota, my daughter and I flew into Tampa and I made sure to plan to save enough time to drive by the old house and neighborhood before getting to the airport for our return flight. Even though I had been back to Florida more than once, even living in Miami for a time in 1984, I had not seen this house since our family left it in 1973.

It was easy enough to find the house, and the neighborhood, while not bright and shiny new, certainly had not changed as much as it might have in 35 years. The sidewalks looked worn and the trees were bigger, but the yards were still mostly tidy and the streets quiet.

The house looked great. I think it was white when we first moved into it but my mom insisted on painting it yellow. I remember my late uncle Burshi helping with that large chore while he and my aunt Irmi came for a visit from Germany. The house was still very yellow and that made me smile. It was easily the nicest looking home on the block.

I planned on taking this photo and I hoped that somehow someone might be home if I knocked on the door.

Someone was.

The same woman who bought the  home from my parents all those years ago. Her name is Mrs. Brackman. And happily, she invited me inside, and when she did, I found myself transported back into time, and for a few minutes, I was 12 years old again.

(To be continued)

Museums, Legacies and People Containers.

A friend recently wrote that she is "not a museum person". Hm. My first reaction after reading that sentence was: I am totally a museum person! I would happily visit almost any type of museum I can name: Art, history, natural science, heck, even a sports museum might hold my interest at least for a while. I have been to some quirky ones over the years too that have made for some fond memories.

While visiting my friend Lynda in Florida, she and I took a tour of the Ringling Museums and of the Ca d'Zan, the mansion that circus legends John and Mable Ringling built right on the clear aqua blue water's edge on the lovely white sand of Sarasota beach.

The art museum houses an impressive collection of all types of work, and even contemporary galleries, but especially Baroque paintings and features some stunning works by Peter Paul Rubens.

The circus museum was pure delight with articles, costumes, photographs, carved circus wagons and even a diesel truck that was converted to the cannon some brave souls were shot out of to the awe of crowds in the early 20th century.

The Ca d'Zan was, however, no question, the pie'ce de resistance.

Built in the 1920's by Mable Ringling and inspired by Venetian palaces, the house has recently undergone extensive renovation and restoration and beautifully displays her legacy, now nearly 100 years later. This is where she and her husband lived and entertained society, throwing lavish parties on the marble patio while orchestras played and their yacht took guests for tours around the bay.

I was most taken with the windows and their tinted panes.

Someday I want to have window panes just like these, they are simply delightful and just as Mabel knew they would, create lovely flattering pastel light inside the home.

I have always been fascinated by houses, both monumental and spectacular such as the Ca d'Zan and yet also by the very humble and even the very poorest of shelters humans have made themselves since we moved out of caves so long ago. I think it was my friend Andrea who called houses "people containers" once when we were discussing the idea, and I think she was so right. They certainly are one way to leave a legacy, or at the very least, a story about the lives that were carried on between their walls.

The next house I visited on the trip was perhaps more moving to my soul than even this jewel by the sea, and it was most certainly much more humble. I'll tell you about that "people container" in my next post.

In Repose goes to Florida for some R&R

A bit of rest and relaxation is in my future. I thank my husband and son for taking over my duties and life at the ranch to make it possible.

See you in a week or so.