How much can you glean from a dream that you think that you've forgotten? One that you can barely hold, just an image, perhaps a place, or a person. The plot fades, but the scene remains. What was it that happened there? Focus on the details. All specifics are only guesses. What is more real - a dream or the memory of a dream, both so ephemeral?I am in the driveway of Grandma and Grandpa Haroldson's house in Iola. I'm with my wife, Shana. Everything is painted white - the house, the garage, the shed. The time is the present, or perhaps the future, and my grandparents have long since past, and maybe my parents as well. And now here we are, Shana and I, and we have inherited this place. We are in the driveway between the shop and the three-season room, discussing how we will use it. There is a jumbled mass in the driveway; a trailer piled and strapped together with objects like an Okie truck bound for California. We're sizing up the garage for a possible studio. This feels good, feels right. We are not upset or annoyed with the burden of the inheritance. We are happy to be there. And the nostalgia is sweet.
Remembering the dream, I ache with the knowledge of this place of my childhood being taken into foreign hands. I no longer have the right to go there, only to drive by slowly when I happen to be in town and burn with the injustice of a stranger's car in the driveway and the trim painted the wrong color, and so many flowers missing.
