When I was young, way before I heard about tsunamis, I had a repeating dream (one of several). It always began when everything in my dream started to go wrong, when people were mean to each other and acted with hate. In that period of my life I was living with my family in a one-room apartment, high up on a hill at the edge of the city. It was the last block before the forest and from our balcony on the 10th floor we had a view across the Baltic Sea.

In my dreams, as things took a wrong turn, we would flee back to the safety of our apartment and watch from the balcony as huge waves tore at the city below, scraping away the buildings and pulling them back into the sea. Our minds were filled with terror at the monstrous force that was edging towards
our home but, at the same time, we knew this was a force for good - cleansing the city of all its evils - and we just hoped it would stop before it reached us. It always did.

The dream stayed with me in my adult life, although the perspective and the location changed. Perhaps I would be at a house party when things took a turn for the worse. Suddenly I would realise that the entire house was out at sea and there was a huge wave towering over us, ready to wash the negativity away. I was no longer afraid of the wave, I had come to learn that its sudden, looming presence meant a clean start.

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Oil on board

Vintage wooden frame with mirror above

H:54.5cm W:26cm

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