'O vaso

'O vaso. In Neapolitan the word plays on two meanings — the vase on the windowsill and the kiss — and the Smorfia built a number on it that speaks of two things at once: something that holds, and something that’s given. Seven is the household object above all others, the one kept for generations that a careless elbow is enough to break. In dreams, seven arrives when the talk is about what holds a family together. A place you come back to, a balance that has held for years, an affection nobody names because everyone takes it for granted. And it brings its own fragility: the things that hold are also the things that break, and a broken vase in a dream is one of the images that stays with you most. The images that lead here have a homey feel. The vase. The door handle, the first thing you touch when you come home. And the bird, which is fear with wings, the kind that flies off at the first noise — because anyone with something fragile to look after knows that fear well. If seven has shown up in your dream, it isn’t announcing a break or a repair. It’s pointing out that something of yours, something delicate, was involved. In Naples they’d say some things need handling with both hands, and the rest — as always here — is up to you.