I have lived in Ravensbourne twice and can confirm it is much darker than the other side of the harbour. Macandrew Bay seemed to sprawl in the sun like a dog, especially in winter, when sun pouring low through the windows really counts. But Freud never factored sun envy into his psychological schema. The other thing about Ravensbourne is the gripey smell from the fertiliser factory and the pub that never seemed open, even when it was.
One of my favourite of the old ladies I used to care for married into a Ravensbourne family and said there was no sun in their home until noon. They tended to congregate in the kitchen which was at the back of the house where the coal range made little difference until the light hit the back door and she would sit on the steps peeling beans and carrots for dinner with her new sister and mother making the most of it before it disappeared behind the hill.
For the past five years, I have had a recurrent nightmare about Ravensbourne, yes, I’m sorry, this is a dream story, but bear with me. In the dream I was back in the house I lived in for six years, back in the bedroom with the copper beech out the window with the view to St Clair through its leaves. Or I was crouched in the living room, suddenly aware I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. The fear then was that I would be caught in my own life, or rather a former version of it. And that he would find me and turn on me and say what are you doing here? Or the walls would melt, which was preferable to being caught by him and I’d wake up crying again. Missing my roses and the philadelphus that grew from a cutting and which took weeks to sprout tender white roots in a glass of water on the windowsill above the sink in the kitchen. It is annoying that I always dream of the interior of the house, because it was my garden that I loved.
It doesn’t sound like much of a nightmare, it sounds more like the opening lines of Daphne Du Maurier’s classic novel, Rebecca , where an unnamed woman is dreaming of Manderley again ... except instead of an estate, it’s a bungalow in Ravensbourne. But being somewhere I am not wanted is one of my worst fears, and in this dream, it’s mixed with the feeling of being an impostor. My therapist, yes, my therapist, once told me that the only person in your dreams is you. Tell that to my tipuna, but they turn up in my dreams very rarely. Instead, I dream about rearranging the cutlery drawer or being in Ravensbourne again. My subconscious is that banal.
I even googled how to stop having a recurring dream but for once Google was almost useless, although as usual the search suggestions resembled a poem: How to stop dreaming about the same dress was my favourite because that dream seems worthy. And then I’d forget about it and like a cold sore’s hot prickle the dream would be back. And my tongue would search for the missing tooth in my head for the rest of the day.
Towards the end of last year, I was going to visit a friend in Ravensbourne quite a bit. I have been able to drive through Ravensbourne on the main road to Port Chalmers without too much inner turmoil for a few years but the actual warren of the suburb was still too full of memories, good and bad so I avoided it. But I drove my old routes and became bolder and braver. Eventually I drove past my old house from the dream I felt little except for noting the coincidence of the similar car in the driveway. It only took five years for a great turgid swamp of feeling to turn into a desert, what a miracle! My new feeling was glee. I had escaped my own head at last.
And the dreams stopped. I had faced my fear I suppose and found it was gone. I am alive and he is not. The future feels fraught with so many potentially chaotic outcomes, but nostalgia won’t make it any brighter.
Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of people lately returning to old loves, even if it’s just Seinfeld reruns, or a pair of bootleg jeans from the noughties or an old ad for Palmolive. Anything to distract us from the plague and the divisions its revealed here in Aotearoa, or the newer threat of distant nuclear war when that distance is an illusion. But it is comforting that Ukrainians have chosen the sunflower as a totem of hope despite the encroaching disaster. They probably would have grown in Ravensbourne if I’d staked them against the right sunny wall.
My therapist was right, the only real person in your dreams is you. It’s the waking world that matters, it’s time for me to dive back in.
