The Dream of the Round House

It rained here last night. I enjoy the sound of rain pouring down on the roof and the splashing off to the ground. It fills the world with a soft rushing noise and it soothes me. Rainy days are contemplative, intimate, introspective days best spent in the company of gentle people.

When I woke of this morning I woke with the memory of a house. I dreamt that I had walked a short distance through a mist shrouded morning, through some lush green trees and shrubs, into a clearing at the center of which was a small hill.

Perched on the summit of the hill was a round stone house. It was pretty big, two stories tall and in the style of vaguely New England Colonial (the large square windows, the large squared off doors). I had a sense of age from the house, but not too much age. There were no modern features visible (no lights, no lighting, no antenna's or satellite dishes).

The house itself was still and silent. Here is a subtle nuance. I had a sense that the house was empty, but not abandoned. More so that it was incidentally empty, like whoever dwelt there was simply not there at this moment in time.

Wrapped around the house in a clockwise direction was a black wrought iron staircase, made a glossy black by the mist. I was walking with a man who was older than I, but not significantly so, and he was dressed in a vague colonial New England style (a woolen frock coat) and he had long hair that was tied back by a single bright blue ribbon with a pale blue trim.

We went up the stair case and on the roof of the house there was an observatory - a small one, really just a large round room with an iron dome that opened by a hand crank. The observatory was closed. The person I was with was excited to show me the features on the roof - the observatory, an observing platform that had a sweeping view of the clearing the house was in, a small intimate breakfast type nook with a hand cranked dumbwaiter, and a small garden. The garden was winterized, the plants carefully wrapped, buried deep in snow. There was an array of copper pipes that flowed through the garden area and then warmed the soil, which in turn kept the plants from freezing.

That was pretty much the sum of the dream. There was nothing else going on, just a still mist shrouded morning and round stone colonial house with an observatory on the roof. I woke from the dream to the sound of rain and jotted down a few notes from the dream so that I could remember them today.