places i've known now gone

i dream most vividly about places i've known that are now gone. the house i (mostly) grew up in is the cocoon of my nostalgia, but it doesn't exist anymore and i don't know how accurate my shadowy memories are. sometimes i can so clearly recall the sunlight, green through leaves, scattered on the living room floor; and the little eat-in table with the bench in the kitchen where we had dinner, and where i always sat in the same spot; and the way the backyard stepped up into a fantasy world with a little shack that became a palace and a mysterious grove of redwoods where all sorts of druidic rituals took place. but i am not sure, when i wake up. the house is gone now, burned in a fire that took out most of the neighborhood.

the other locus of my dreamlife is my grandparents' apartment in Tokyo, in a distric called Takadanobaba, close to the bustle of Shinjuku but removed enough to feel suburban...or as suburban as anyplace inside Tokyo can be. the apartment was a tiny two-room apartment, filled with the scent of sacred incense and books and my grandmother's perfumerie. but mostly i dream of the immense back garden, which in the summer gave off a jungly heat and buzzed with mosquitos and a green, febrile scent. this apartment complex and all other built near it are gone, demolished by a construction boom and new development. i haven't been able to find my way back, the neighborhood has changed so much.

but i'm not lamenting, merely reflecting. change...even had the building remained, they'd be empty husks anyway. only in my mind are they forever the homes i knew, filled with adventure, and love.