Time, space, and dreams of houses

Please note: this post is 2 for 1. The link to the 2nd post, Slide Dreams, is near the end of this piece. Thanks to readers and subscribers. xx

“Baudelaire declared that dreamers like a severe winter.” (Bachelard, The Poetics of Space)

It seemed fitting that the first photograph from my new abode in Brighton should be a wintry one of snow and houses. Gazing from my new window, I remembered not only my childhood love of snow but Bachelard’s line about Baudelaire. I had included it in an early Substack post about our remembered homes, dreaming, and Kodachrome.

Snow on the old street (Kodachrome, c1960s)

---

Much has happened since that old post, in my private life and in the world. Of course, this must be so. But as I write today, I am thinking about the cruel preponderance of lost houses - from the prolonged, criminal destruction of Gaza to the climate-change-driven fires of Los Angeles, and many places besides.

If, as Bachelard contends, the houses of our memories take us back to “motionless childhood,” then what memories will come to those who lose their houses through violence, disaster, or injustice? And if the “chief benefit of the house” is that it “shelters day-dreaming, protects the dreamer, and allows one to dream in peace,” then surely our first thoughts must be with the surviving children of Gaza and all children who have lost their first and only-remembered houses.

So in truth, however challenging this past year, I am a lucky one. While I find my feet, my writings, my dreams in a new place, here then is that early post about Bachelard, houses, and Kodachrome: Slide Dreams

With love to all children hoping for a safe place to dream their dreams.

---

Thanks, as ever, to my dear friends Jean-Raymond and Marie-Paule, who first introduced me to Bachelard’s writings. (Avec mes remerciements, comme toujours, à mes chers amis Jean-Raymond et Marie-Paule, qui m'ont fait découvrir les écrits de Bachelard.)

Additional thanks to Zoe Matthews for her warm welcome to Brighton!