We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal's inter-communications with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word "smell," for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning, inciting, repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.
Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the River! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day's work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
* * *
I had a dream in the last few minutes before waking up this early morning.
It was dark and I was waking up in our Menlo Park apartment, and Stephen was out of town (Stephen is actually, in waking life, out of town).
I got up and walked into the dining room. I reached for the blinds to try and peer out. Apparently, in my dreams, I also morosely wish I could go jogging, despite the rain and dark.
As I touched the blind, I started to notice that things were horribly different and wrong. In the darkness, I made out that our dining room table had been splintered in half, and one of the legs had been wrenched off. Articles were strewn across the living room.
I started to panic, looking for laptops and other items of importance. I ran to the front door. It was ajar, and droplets of rain were spewing in. I hurriedly shut it and flipped the lock. I ran to the back door, which was also open. Rain soaked into my pajamas as I stepped outside to pull the screen closed, before shutting the door and drawing the chain.
My wallet was sitting out on the dismembered dining set. All the cash was gone, and I couldn't quite make out which cards were still there. Turning the wallet over, I realized that the pink Scottie dog emblem had been cut out of the leather. I found it lying on the remains of the tabletop, a tiny frayed fragment.
At this point, it occurred to me that I might not be entirely safe. Whoever had done this might be coming back for more. I crawled under the covers with my cellphone, and desperately tried to dial 911. My fingers kept misdialing--9911. 9115. 915. 91155. Once I managed to dial through, but reached the police in Portland, Oregon. Somehow I also had Stephen on the other line through this, and I was trying to whisper to both of them: "No, Menlo Park, California." "Tony. Tony. We've been broken into." No one could understand me.
Thankfully, this is when I woke up. It was an unsettling but not a terrifying dream, and a few bright lights and a tour through the apartment had me mostly assured that all was well.
* * *
Stephen and I are apartment hunting again. As always, it is a wretched, anxiety-producing process, and there's no doubt in my mind that this, at least in part, must have played into the burglary dream. The things that were the worst victims in the dream were not, in fact, items of any real value. Our dining set is an absolutely worthless piece of crap, which we picked up for free off the street. The wallet, likewise, I hardly noticed the contents of; my attention was entirely consumed with the little dog, which is the feature of it that I really love. The real victims of the dream were of sentimental value, then. Stephen and I reupholstered the dining set ourselves, and it has come to signify, I suppose, our efforts at putting our home together. A resourcefulness which is now being put to its full test, as we look for our next apartment.
One's inevitable conclusion from the experience of apartment-hunting in San Francisco is that Craigslist is the absolute pits. I kid you not. I go through fits of ecstasy and winters of despair. "Ah! this place would be so, so perfect!" alternating with, "Dear God, we are never, ever going to find anywhere." This dark ultimatum may seem ever-so-slightly hyperbolic, but I would submit to you the following: Stephen and I have seen upwards of 10 apartments thus far, and counting. One "beautiful restored Victorian" had no sink in the bathroom, meaning you get to brush your teeth in the kitchen every day. One "gorgeous" SoMa loft was next-door neighbor to a triple X video store. How lovely. Several places had tiny, 24-inch electric stoves in which I would surrender the luxury of baking a dozen chocolate chip cookies at a time, let alone roasting a chicken. I would say that 50 percent of the places we've seen do not have onsite laundry. Better yet, I'd give about a 1 in 4 odds to the people who flat out don't respond when I email or call them to try and see a place. And lest we fail to mention, the charming gentleman who simply stood us up when we had made an appointment to view his place. Ray is a personal favorite of mine.
Moving to the city, I tried to mentally prepare myself. I expected apartments to be a little smaller, rents to be a little higher. Unrelenting soul-crushing, however, one cannot be sufficiently braced against. Stephen and I have paired up with a couple of friends, and have been looking at a few 3 bedrooms. We all fell in love with one, and we pounced--we got in as soon as we could to see it, we filled out and turned in applications that very same afternoon, assuring the landlord that we were ready to drop off deposit checks as soon as possible. We called two days later. Someone has offered him more money. He's "thinking about it."
I spent so much time wondering when my job would be secure, and wondering when and how I would be able to move to San Francisco. Finally, I'm ready. No matter how many pep talks I give myself about being level-headed, and waiting it out, I just want to move now. I find it impossible not to get excited about the little details of places. We could have a reading nook in that bay window! We could totally get a Welsh Corgi and have huge fabulous barbecues in that garden! Who cares that there's no sink in the bathroom?
It's the romance and the heartbreak of Craigslist, and a churning, overactive imagination, I believe, is what keeps the apartment hunter up at night. Not to neglect the obvious takeaways, such as it's raining, and I really, really, need to go jogging.
