The Stairs and the Keepers. UP

If I remember correctly from mum's stories this house has five staircases with their own keepers:

  Jaguar Jade

Shadow Smokes

Pan

Fawn 

Golden Unicorn 

I also remember there could be Tweedle Dee and Dum  talking Teapots and a Old Dopey Troll in the corridor.

Time to explore, but which way? It made sense to try the nearest  stairs first. That was in this room a huge grand sweeping staircase going up. I was also pleased that this keeper was fast asleep. I crept up  quietly and quickly, not  a blink, I wasn't about to wake him now.  That was easy, it took me up to the middle of a long corridor with lots of doors on each side. One was open so I peaked in, nothing. I tried another and found a well loved floppy zebra on the window's ledge, was it my grandmothers? I carried on, I wasn't sure which way and then I noticed a curtain in place of a door at the end of the corridor on the right so I went that way. Bingo, two more staircases, one up the other down. I'd just been down so it had to be up. I tried to go up but tripped and fell back. How very strange, it felt like I had walked into a sheet of glass or an invisible barrier or maybe a force that I had bounced right off. As I sat puzzled at the bottom of the stairs I saw a golden unicorn standing on the step. I picked him up, he wasn't much bigger than my hand, I look him in the eye and walk up the stairs, this time I make it to the top. Of course he was a keeper. I placed him at the top of the stairs so that he could help me back down. I found myself in front of a large arched door. 

A Continuous Cycle, Our Tree of Life:

Hello Mimi, Yes you can see me, your mother, your father your great great grandfathers, Uncles and Aunt's brother's and sister's we are all there, those who came before you making the foundations ready for the life that will become yours. They will continue to lay out the path for your children and their children after.

The Life Tree

Momo was long gone as was the snow and the tree. Everywhere was bare, full of dust with sheets over furniture that had been left behind. I pulled the sheets back. Yes, it was the same old furniture, Mofa's leather chair and foot stall where I saw Momo, just a moment ago. No trace of the tree. It was real, I mean it was actually there, right in front of my eyes. Now it looks like it has disolved, right under my nose.

I sneak a peak under the closest sheet. Under one of the sheets I saw the edge of a large gold  frame, I pull the sheets back expecting to see a mirror. It wasn't, it was a painting of the tree that I had just seen. It was beautiful. It was painted on raw silk and had gold thread outlines around the edges. The tree's trunk split into six and once again appeared like a wood, except when I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye it looked more like a waterfall. In the painting it was easy to see the figures that float within the branches of life, situation and relationships. I wondered if one of them was Momo. It looked like the same church where mum and dad got married, could it be?

The Great Park and the Dragonfly

Ah, yes. That is the picture I painted. It's of my youngest brother, we were very close. I had six siblings, two brothers, four sisters. My youngest brother died very young. Some say it looks like my own son, Einar. It is strange because they're right. It was painted so many years before he was born and yet It looks just like him. The dragonfly is there because my brother enjoyed going fishing with his dad to the lakes that were deep in the forest. There were always dragonflies darting in and out of the bullrushes. One day he cried because it landed on his nose and he thought he was going to turn into a dragon.He used to sit there and fish and imagine what it would be like to be a dragonfly. To have such big eyes to be able to see all the way round, to see out from the back of your head. To hover, almost to float mid air and to land on water and never sink.Oh how it would be to be a dragonfly.I'm not sure my children heard this story because during the winter, after heavy snow settles the first thing they do is go to the great sculpture park. Luckily it was only a couple of blocks away at the end of our road. They would make tracks in the snow along the paths beside the statues of life, running down the many paths over and over and then carefully placing one foot directly infront of another. This took all day, afterwards they were so proud claiming they had made a perfect giant dragonfly. Of course back then I didn't understand, I didn't get it- now I do many decades later as an arial photograph of the park with it's paths look - just like a giant dragonfly. I still don't know how they could have known.

The Dragonfly Park.

A Dragonfly Causes a Cry.

I ran up to the window, past the tree and into the front room. The window was awkward and heavy, but eventually I managed to pull it shut. The wind and snow stopped and then I was left in perfect silence. The room was empty except for a large old desk , there is an inkwell that was placed perfectly on top of a silver waterfall. I roll my t-shirt up to polish it, It's a pyramid shape with smooth water running in the middle, over rough rocks that poke through at the edges .

 It shines and glistens bright. Inside I see a reflection of a greeny blue dragonfly. I look up and expect to see my friend from the plane, but it not. That's odd, still a dragonfly, except this one is red. The painting however is mostly green. It's of a boy crying as a dragonfly flies past. Is that the painting that Momo did? I'm sure I've heard about it before.

I'd ask her.

I walked back into the other room.

She wasn't there.

Kjære Gud jeg har det godt

Kjære Gud jeg har det godt Takk for alt som jeg har fått Du er god, Du holder av meg Kjære Gud gå aldri fra meg Pass på liten og på stor Gud bevare far og mor (Og alle barn på jord)

Dear God, I have it good Thank you for everything that I have You are good, you look after me Dear God, never leave me Look after all the young and old God look after father and mother (And all the children on earth)

Nobelsgate 13

The door was ajar. It was dark and cold. I walked through the hall into the drawing room. Had I walked inside to outside? Or summer to winter? Something didn't make sense. It was blowing an almighty blizzard and the snow settled in drifts up against the memory of what should have been a wall. In the middle of the room was the biggest tree I had ever seen was in the centre.

It was so big it looked like the trunks had split to become a wood. I looked high up, I couldn't see the celing, it was more of a night's sky. Black and white doves perched, tweeting and flying within the branches, it almost made me feel giddy. I squinted my eyes, were my eyes playing tricks again or could I see a house, a church a boy and a girl. It's vague, almost see-through. Did I hear a giggle, what was that noise? Crashing water, a waterfall perhaps? In the corner of my eye I can see Momo. I'd never seen her  before, she died way before I was born. I knew it was her from the pictures mum had shown me. She looked young and beautiful. She was sewing something in patchwork. She had a crown of daisies on her head. Momo smiled, but she couldn't see me. She was singing.