Remodeling

This morning I woke up from a dream that struck me as significant. The last scene is the one I remember clearly. I was working on the interior of my house (which was in my dream and is in real life quite the formidable task), trying to remodel and make improvements. My attention was focused on a south-facing wall with a large picture window (like the one in my dining room that looks onto our front porch, only in my dream this window wall was in my basement, where there is no sort of south-facing window at all, not even a small one). I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and solicit and allow someone's help. I was faced with so much work that I had to finally admit that I couldn't do it all alone. I made up my mind to do the prep work on the window wall myself—pull down the wallpaper on the lower half (there is none of this on my real walls) and sand/remove the old ugly paint above (there's plenty of this)— and then ask my father (who in real life has been dead for almost 20 years) to finish the wall and make it beautiful. My plan was to paint the basement—this wall and the rest of them—white, to brighten up the space, and reflect available light. I was reluctant to share the work I felt I ought to do, but I knew my father was feeling frustrated that I didn't call on his help more, and anyway, I was overwhelmed and tired. I anxiously wondered if he would do the work in the way I wished him to, but felt that regardless he would do a careful job. I reminded myself that he was an "expert." I began my prep work at the low bottom left corner beneath the large window, and pulled at a piece of wallpaper. There were more layers of the stuff than I'd realized, so I put more strength into tugging it from the wall, and—zip!— a great strip came off all the way up, tore through the painted area, and ripped around the window, pulling down with it heaps of dry-rot wood from the window frame. Once I freed this surprising strip and its heavy load from the wall, suddenly more light than ever poured in—it came steadily through the window itself but also it shone more brightly and unfiltered through the empty space left by the torn-down frame. The window miraculously continued to hang securely in place despite its lack of obvious support. The amount of light coming into my basement was nearly double. I stood looking in amazement at what I'd just done.