Doors

Doors….. Why are they so important in our lives? Figuratively and sometimes physically, they mark phases of our lives.

For years I had a dream that I was going back to the my childhood home. I would have traveled across the seven seas to get to my little country town, which again was a few miles from the rubber estate on which we had lived. I would see myself being driven down the winding road with verdant flora bordering both sides of the road, I would get as far as the river and the bridge. It’s a wooden bridge built by the British, probably a hundred years ago. Below is a meandering, muddy river, which has a bank on one side and a mangrove swamp on the other. A few crocodiles are seen now and then, especially close to that nice “jambu” tree, which probably stays laden, thanks to the crocs below.

I cross the bridge and head towards home on the dirt track flanked by mangrove swamps. But before I can get to the railway crossing, I wake up. The bridge followed by a few yards on the dirt track is a far as I get, I never reach my home. The ‘door’ closes on me here.

This was a recurring dream for 20 odd years, until I insisted on re-visiting the place when I next went back home. This time, we steadfastly crossed the bridge, went over the railway crossing and through the forest of rubber trees, which opened up to show the lovely blue sky with puffed up cotton-wool clouds, brightly proclaiming mid-day.

We turned the corner and then I had a shock, gone was the hill-and-valley scene of my childhood. The hill on the right with its water tank and lovely wild plants had given way to major leveling; it was just stark red earth there, probably earmarked for another housing estate? And to the left where my home lay, the beautiful garden and lawns were all gone - the orchids, roses and hibiscus, the wild cherry tree, the single orange tree, which actually fruited, amongst papayas and guavas.

The house was still there, but many changes had taken place, it was no longer the sole occupant of an acre of garden, there were too many other homes close by. The charm, the green space… was gone.

Something died in me. I felt, no, I heard, that door to my charmed life with my parents as a little girl, close firmly behind me.

I crossed the seven seas again back to my present home and I have never had that dream again.