Moving out of the apartment we’ve lived in for 10+ years, there are new people moving in soon. Various recollections:
- Shelves and shelves.
- Packing things away with boxes, yet often while being inside them.
- Hundreds of semi-forgotten nostalgias.
- Turning a Brita mini-fridge back into a working water filter fridge, from a litter box.
- A tiny desiccated plant box, a former fridge magnet.
- The wood on the top shelf of cabinets has sagged down from all the bottles kept on it, almost to the point of the bottles falling off. One notable unidentified bottle in a high kitchen windowsill, from a hike my wife and I took once on the day that would be our anniversary — except in the narrative, this hike actually occurred on our wedding day.
- My friend Val was there, to express her sympathies.
A narrow tall Victorian house (like the Carson Mansion in Eureka, California) up on a hill. I’ve negotiated with our landlord or perhaps the temp-stay management to let me store stuff in the attic there. Yet I haven’t even been up there by the time our scheduled check-out date arrives.
During the dream I constantly have the feeling that all the solutions I’ve sorted out over the years are being dismantled, one by one.
A Russian-style hot tub hut with distinctive green tiles is another place we’ve rented, and another place we’re also giving up. Frustratingly, I realize we’ve only visited 2-3 times. On the side, the green ceramic vertical tiles (like long pyramids) have fallen off a small section, revealing what I never noticed — small handmade classical Russian banya tiles, even more beautiful.
Displayed on a rotating platform nearby is a model train made to resemble an expensive handmade miniature yacht, built of metal, wood and cut glass.
“Maep” is a strange word said by a midget which is used to remind me: time is up. Time is up, and I awake.