My grandfather used to put me down in the cellar with the rats and the spiders.
I was wrong when I assumed the cellar in one of my time travel novels was a metaphoric cellar representing the unconscious. The cellar was the port of departure for travel in the story. I guess it was in real life, too. That was no metaphoric cellar. It was a real one. And when I was down there, I... traveled. I went away. Sometimes I see the cellar door of the grandparents' house standing open in my nightmares. I dreamed of the grandfather last night, but... I don't remember. So many things I don't remember.
From my post on April 24 -- "I started dreaming of the grandparents' house. I was in their living room watching cartoons. I saw my grandfather in his recliner. He looked harmless enough, but I felt uneasy. I thought of the kitchen. I could see it in my mind and the cellar door was open. I was very afraid. And then, very strangely, I realized that I was beyond the reach of my therapist..."
I often had a feeling about "something nasty in the woodshed" and dreams involving a malevolent, shadowy figure when I was growing up. After I had my son I started to have vague memories of my grandmother's cellar and began to put two and two together about some of these dreams, some of my behaviors in childhood, and knowledge from my cousins and realized that the something nasty was my uncle.
ReplyDeleteOh my god. Thinking of you. Angry for you. So fucking angry tonight.
ReplyDeleteYour post is the reason I don't want to remember the "some uneasy feeling I have about such and such" but sometimes I think there is no escape.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry the memories that found you are so terrible. What an awful thing to go through, especially as a child.
Bastard.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteWhy must it always be cellars?
(Sorry, it's a defense tactic of mine.)
Spent several years of my childhood in one, too.
((((((((((Lynn))))))))))))