I once read that dreaming of houses means that you are searching for the right one, for your proper place in the world, for, like Goldilocks, the place that's "just right."
I've always dreamed of houses, from big houses where I get lost to small ones that turn into nightmares. Some houses recur, like the big clean, white dormitory where I once was happy that I revisit hoping to have that happy time again, but it's never the same. Then there's a nightmarish version of the house my ex-husband and I actually bought, with the too-small rooms. Sometimes I dream that it sits near a huge forest, the paths of which I seem to remember. Sometimes it's on a hill near the town where my grandparents lived. Always the landscape is familiar. Never have I been to anyplace like it. Speaking of my grandparents, there are dreams where I am taking people to their marvelous, magical cottage near the river but, although I can see the house as clear as anything, we never get there. One of my favorites is the church - or maybe it's a theatre - where the upstairs rooms are huge bedrooms filled with heavy dark furniture, deep red brocade hangings, and views of a winter night under moonlight from the windows.
So now comes my third novel, A Dream of Houses.
It's the story of a woman who has changed houses from time to time, but nothing seems to have changed for her. Maybe she isn't in the right place. Maybe she should have taken another path.
So, she does.
It's harder than you might think, imagining other futures for yourself. There's a kind of false vibe that has nothing to do with its being fiction. When I think of some of the other paths I might have followed, I always find myself saying, "I can't imagine it."
But I've tried. Because I think it's a path we all should go down once in a while, if for no other reason than to get right back where we belong. Which may or may not be the place from which we started.
I hope you enjoy A Dream of Houses.
It's a story of ordinary people with extraordinary dreams.