Sanctuary

Mood: Calm
Music: Lets Get Lost - Beck And Bat For Lashes
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Disclaimer: This story and associated image are safe for work. 

I haven't posted a short story in awhile, so I felt it was time to share another.  I penned this story on Friday, July 2nd, 2010, shortly after waking up that morning. Enjoy it.

Love,
Ally.

Photo Credit: Legs in the River at Castleton; Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Sanctuary

I realise something, that whenever I'm particularly stressed out, or going through a difficult phase, I dream about the same place. When I was a child, I had a lovely woman who took care of me after school, and during the holidays. For me, the comfort of her home has always been a sanctuary. The smell of her of living room, the scents wafting from her kitchen as I sat waiting for dinner or helping her to make various juices or my favourite: home-made tamarind balls (sugar rolled into a ball around a tamarind fruit).
She was a seamstress by trade, and it comforted me to hear her at the machine, whether it be the quiet humming of the stitching, or the back and forth motion her old style serge-machine made as she used her foot to guide the pedal. I once asked why she didn't buy a modern serge-machine, and she told me that was her exercise, the repetitive motion she made with her foot was calming as I sat in the living room doing homework each evening.

Then there was her garden, ignore my tendency to kill the orchid on my kitchen counter now - because she honed the green thumb I inherited from my father in that garden. I learned about roses and how to care them, for her roses could win awards in my 8 year old mind. I learned how to care for morning glories, to know the difference between plant cuttings, and flowers that grew from a bulb.
When things were rough between my parents, her home was my sanctuary - like the night my father did not show up till late - well after "Young and the Restless" had aired and the 8pm news programme had finished. As I sat watching a silly movie that had no bearing on my life...she was there.

It is my personal belief that when things are lacking in one area of your life - the Universe (God, Allah, whatever you want to believe in) sends you something or someone in another area to compensate. I did not have a strong relationship with my own mother, which is something I would not realise until further down in my life. The childhood version of myself had no comparison to draw from about how a mother-daughter relationship should be...but I had her. I will not call her a motherly, or even a grandmotherly figure - no, she was something much more than that.

So now as an adult, it makes sense to me that I would dream about her home when I am stressed and need an escape. Her home which she opened to me, not because she was being paid to do it but because she genuinely cared. I loved her then, and looking at the role she played in my life - I love her more for it.
In my dreams - I take the sources of my problem to her house and each dream starts the same way: I'm either in her living room, or her bedroom - both having doors leading to the carport. I enter and sit - either on the couch or bed and I'm always confused about where I am. I wander the house, and make my way into the kitchen - where it all comes flooding back. Whether she is in the kitchen cooking, or the kitchen is empty but filled with the most amazing smells...I always realise where I am and I feel safe.

Then the dream continues, and I work out whatever issue I'm facing in real life in the safety of her home. It's like going to your weekend home, and bring paperwork home from the office: you relax but you get work done.
Sometimes I sit and contemplate an issue, sometimes I bring actual persons from my real life who are the sources of my problems and we talk. No matter how the dream flows, I always wake up feeling slightly better about the issue - and more importantly with a resolution in mind or a plan of action.

It is amazing how the things that happen in childhood can shape the person you become as an adult. The things you never consider, or in many cases do not remember hold a strong bearing on how you act, the decisions you make, the people you hold near and dear or even the way you deal with real problems. All that said: if I didn't have her as a child, what would my current coping mechanism be if I couldn't slip back to her house in my dreams? It's a scary thought, thinking about not having that place to turn to, in times of need.

I haven't seen her in many years, and after last night's dream...I wish she were here. Not to offer some sage wisdom or to make my problems go away, no, those are my burdens to bear. I wish she were here to remind me of better times, and for me to thank her face-to-face for being a positive influence in my life.

I wish she were here so I could look in her eyes and thank her for being an amazing woman in a world of women who on their best days could only pass for mediocre.

- END -