The House Shelters Daydreaming

“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

This quote is from The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, which is waiting patiently in our storage unit as we renovate. My calculus teacher in high school recommended it to me. (Why? I do not know.) But I actually (re?)-read this quote in Real Estate by Deborah Levy, which is a book I do not own. Therefore it is not waiting patiently in our storage unit. (Things, objects, and ideas can make a deep impression on us even if we do not “own” them.)

Here’s a text I received from my dad the other day. My parents are in the middle of a road trip to Northern California — a bit of a John Steinbeck pilgrimage. But they first travelled due west and stopped in Los Angeles, they city they moved to after they were married and also the city where I was born. They lived in a few rentals here and there before purchasing their first home, pictured. Yet I imagine each of the homes leading up to this house on stilts held daydreams…because daydreams don’t require ownership, just an imagination.

I don’t think I ever actively daydreamed in this house — we moved when I was 6 months old — but this house forever lives in my dreams.

{Here’s a piece about a serendipitous visit to this house with my mom that was published in The Boston Globe on Mother’s Day 2018.}

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originally published on instagram