The Dreaming House

I live in a very old house that looks like a crumbling castle and feels like a haunted hug from a friendly ghost.

It rises behind a yard gone wild, wrapped in gray stone like a Romanesque cathedral that crash-landed on a quiet residential street. Ivy stretches wherever it pleases, a rusted fence zig-zags like it’s had one too many, and tall, overgrown bushes do their best to guide you in.

Look up from the front steps and you’ll see a small terrace, and clinging to the side, a turret that makes the whole place look like a crooked castle from a rain-soaked storybook. Just above the stoop perch, two derpy gargoyles—lion heads caught mid-photo. Someone told them to say cheese, and they did, and now they’re stuck like that. Big goofy grins, fangs on display, thrilled you’ve come.

And at the tippy top, a small cross — my favorite part. The cherry atop the spooky sundae. The yard’s dotted with wise, old trees, and the ivy stretches from the ground all the way up, like it’s trying to squeeze the life out of the home.

The house was built in 1895 for some old dead guy. An Archbishop lived here at some point, too. He’s the one who added the cross—like he wanted to say, only god people, magic people, and weirdos will ever live here, and this place will always belong to the dreamers. Sometimes I think he’s still here, peeking out from behind the ivy, watching over his crumbling little kingdom.

And yes, the place is falling apart in ways that should bother me. But they don’t. The floors creak like they’re trying to whisper something important, but they always forget the last word. The toilet is so low I feel like I’m squatting at a campsite, but I don’t mind. The water pressure goes dink… dink… dink… like it’s asking, is this okay? can I come out now? And the wires—oh, the wires. They hang everywhere, like the house got dressed in a hurry and forgot to tuck everything in. Especially in the basement. Not a single wire is where it should be. And absolutely nothing’s up to code.

The landlord keeps a coin-operated washer and dryer down there, surrounded by six broken machines he refuses to get rid of. He’s a real collector of forgotten things—a hoarder. In the basement, his piles climb to the ceiling. The basement windows are blocked by mountains of his junk, so no light gets in, and the whole place feels like a sliver of the underworld. There are inaccessible, mysterious doors down there, maybe even with bodies behind them. But we’ll never know. The junk keeps its secrets.

There’s a service stair — old, dreamy, the kind you’d float down in a nightgown if you lived in a novel — but it’s been swallowed by the hoard, disappeared into it, like a ship lost at sea. And up at the top of the house, there’s a ballroom that doesn’t dance anymore. It just sits quietly under the roof, holding its breath beneath sky-high stacks of paint cans, old magazines, doo-dads, whatzits, and whatever-else-fits.

And these are the prices I pay, happily, to live in a house that feels so deeply, wildly alive—a house that was waiting for somebody like me.

Every morning, my chunky dog wakes me up with fake yawns—big theatrical ones, like he’s starring in a play called Let Me Out Right Now. The second I open the door, he blasts into the backyard as if he isn’t the size of a rhinoceros, charging after his squirrel friends, whether or not they’ve shown up for the morning Tom and Jerry ceremony.
Most mornings, they’re there—squirrels, scoping for snacks, keeping one nervous little eye on my dodo beast. And the second he blasts out the door, they scatter—up the trees, over the fence, across the wires, like tiny acrobats in his own private circus. And he just goes. No plan, no strategy, just everything. Like someone whispered in his ear, the fate of the planet depends on you! Go! And so he does.

Once the yard is empty and he’s standing there, panting and proud, he pauses to take stock. He checks the usual hiding spots, nose to the ground, just in case. And that’s when the little stinkers begin to goad him. From the branches, they chitter at him, they dance, they laugh their tiny squirrel laughs—you can’t catch us, you oaf! And his little tail nub goes wild. It starts as a wag, but faster and faster until it’s a blur of water colors— a tiny propeller, whirring so furiously it hums, like it’s calling the air to lift him.

And then, would you believe it? The propeller catches. His pizza-slice-shaped ears flap gracefully, capturing air. And his whole chunky body lifts, slowly, joyfully, right off the weedy, ivy-choked backyard. You can almost hear it: whirrrrrrrrr — a valiant little pinwheel chugging away under his big, hopeful body. Up toward the branches, up toward his squirrel frenemies. And he’s not even surprised. As if sheer hope and determination are enough to lift him into the air. Up he goes, buzzing after them, absolutely certain that this is it—this is the moment he finally catches them.

And I sit on the steps, watching him float, watching the whole yard hum and shimmer around him. And I realize: this is the magic. Not the cross at the tippy top, not the grinning gargoyles, not the house itself—but the way it all comes together. A creaky, crumbling place that still knows how to conjure wonder. A dog who believes, with his whole heart, that he might fly. A morning that feels, for a little while, like a dream I get to live inside. A house that chose me. And I stay there, as long as I can, inside it.