dozens dreams

The Neighborhood

2020-08-01

I was at my grandparents’ house sitting on a counter. My grandfather came up and gave me a hug and then shooed me off the counter.

I went outside and across the backyard past the garden, and decided to cut through the neighbor’s property at the end of the lane to go the long way up the switchbacks to get to the bunkhouse.

When I got around the lake and started going up the switchbacks, I was suddenly in the back of the The Neighborhood, which is always frustrating because I can never quite remember the way through the winding roads to get up the hill and down the other side where I want to go.

I started cutting through alleys and across driveways and then, as the houses grew more and more crowded, across front porches and through garages and sitting rooms and houses, letting myself in and shutting the door behind me. It’s customary to cut through strangers’ houses in this part of The Neighborhood as long as you make a reasonable effort not to disturb the residents. I tiptoed across a couple sleeping dogs, and edged past a couple crowded around a small table in a tiny room.

Eventually I came out somewhere near the top of the hill and the space opened up. I was walking through somebody’s backyard garden, and little fences on the side of the path prevented passersby from stepping onto the grass or into the garden.

There was a flower garden though covered with red poppies that I wanted to get a closer look at. Wanting to honor the owner’s wishes and not step on the grass, I flew about two or three feet off the ground and floated over to the flowers, and then up into the branches of a tall tree and sat there.

Polly came out of the house having found me somehow in the twisting passages of the neighborhood, and she started throwing sheets of paper into the air, “I need you to sign these!”

tags: #grandparents #neighborhood #flying

Commentary:

This dream combined three familiar places:

  1. My grandfather’s house with the garden and the lake at the end of the lane

  2. The switchbacks at the camp where I used to live.

  3. The Neighborhood, a familiar and recurring dreamscape. A labyrinthine housing community that I’m sure is based on the one I grew up in. I’m always trying to remember the “back way” or a shortcut from one end of the neighborhood to another, or from the neighborhood to somewhere outside.