I’m Britni Pepper. I live in Melbourne, in an old house in an old suburb by the Bay. A quiet street: railway at one end, parkland at the other, a few minutes walk to the main shopping street.
I love it here in my cottage crammed full of books and souvenirs from my travels, a sunroom and a couple of outbuildings in the back, the old flagstone lane behind the back fence, a neat garden in front facing the street, a less kempt affair behind.
I can stand on the porch and wave to the neighbours, or I can sit privately under a big old elm in the back with a coffee mug on the table, my cat curled up on the other chair, and think about stuff before going inside and writing it down.
I have a job in the travel industry that involves writing and photography and working from home a lot of the time, and often a glorious junket overseas to get more material.
I had a bit of an odd upbringing, raised in what might be termed a cult until my eighteenth birthday when I left, finding refuge here with my great-aunt and uncle.
It’s my house now, and I’m happy here where I used to crawl on the carpets and look for flowers as a toddler and wobble down the lane on an old tricycle.
After university, I was a Girl Friday with a battlefield tour group, and that was its own education when I started assisting on the overseas trips. I gained a taste for travel then and never really looked back. You should see my passports, full of stamps and visas!
This old house is my place, my home, my retreat from the world.
But I have this weird dream of another house
I have another home. One that doesn’t exist in the physical world but has been part of my life ever since I began living in this little house.
The depths of my subconscious can be a weird place and I don’t go looking down there. Every now and then something comes bubbling up. Can’t stop it, really.
A solution to a problem, often arriving as I stand in the shower, my mind on nothing at all but soap and water.
Or an idea for a story. Or a way out of some mess I’ve gotten into.
Or a dream, vivid and vital, full of keys and symbols and meaning that are real and solid for no more than a few moments.
This one, though, I’ve had it for years and years and although it has its own greedy attraction, it bothers me.
I have a house in my dream. Not my cosy cottage with smells of old potpourri and cat fur, cramped and antique in odd corners.
No, this is a large, sprawling house, full of rooms and wings with more rooms. Attics full of books with all the treasures of my youth packed away on shelves. A swimming pool in a courtyard and every time I look around I find the house has sprouted more rooms. They seem familiar and part of the house but they weren’t there last time I looked. I walk around showing it all off to people as if I could somehow fill this vast mansion with my lonesome self, moving from suite to suite on my old tricycle.
This morning I woke and in my just-finished dream I’d been escorting a work colleague through to a back room - a room that changed and grew and sprouted doors and hallways every time my mind looked at it - where he had stored some belongings. I remember a bike leaning against a wall just before my eyes open and I wondered awake.
“You’re a blinker or a stinker,” my colleague declared and it all vanished. All but the fragments of this dream and the many before it that had built up some sort of subtle sediment in the corridors and empty wings of my conscious memory.
What does it mean?
I don’t know. Maybe someone will tell me. I often see the grand houses or old palaces of other people and places. I remember a villa on the shore of Lake Como, two stories for the people and less lofty basement and attic rooms for the help.
A merchant’s house in some Persian city, rooms and halls around a central court. “This wing for summer, this sunny side for the winter,” our guide told us. Lord, how that house rambled!
People build McMansions nowadays. Houses bigger than they could ever need. Five bathrooms that sparkle. Long corridors that need vacuuming and windowsills that need dusting.
I couldn’t live in such a space. Sure, I could feel a sense of greedy ownership - mine, all mine! - but I’m happy in my little old house full of comfort and cosy and fond memories.
Here’s my interpretation
Somewhere deep inside I want to sprawl in an environment bigger than I could ever live in.
And here it is on Substack.
Britni’s Place.
I can write all the odd stuff here. The dreams, the trips, the philosophy, the ramblings, the rants.
I don’t know what’s going to be put up on this spot, but it will be epic. And unplanned. Bits added on at random.
I won’t demand money. You can browse here for free, chat over the fence, show me pictures of your grandkids, take some of the fresh eggs, loan me a drill or something when I need to patch up a wobbly bit. There will be no “subscriber-only” posts. Anyone wanting to subscribe may do so at the minimum rates - kind of like buying me a coffee now and again - and I might do the same back.
My other publication - Unclad Author - is something I will work on to be a place of value and information. Maybe not to everyone’s taste, that being the nature of the topic, but something tidier and more coherent than this glorious mess.
Over to you, readers
Is this sort of thing others have? A dream house that is really some kind of nightmare?
If this resonates, let me know. I’m not sure I want to be too alone in my weird vision.
Speaking of visions, what do you see filling this space? Tales of travel, random stews of leftovers, stories that aren’t erotica, anything?
I mean, it’s not like I don’t have a hill of ideas already but, like books, I can always use more!
Britni