Home

In my dreams, I am nearly always at the home where I grew up. I walk through the same rooms where I lived then, with the view out the window the same as it’s always been. My things are in the closets, the wooden doors as familiar to me as my own skin. Sometimes, the dream is more a memory, with past players and old conversations that never were or that should have been. Sometimes the house is just a stage, set with different props and acted upon by new talent.

In my dreams, the walls know me and I am part of them.

My dreams never keep me safe at the home we have made together, where we currently lay our heads at the end of each day. I don’t return to California, or Colorado, and only seldom do I revisit the wood-paneled walls of our first place in Kansas. If I briefly glimpse that former home, the floors are bare and the rooms echo with the memories we created there.  Those homes look just as they did the day we left them, spotless and shining and vacant of everything but the role they played in our family’s story.

When I awaken and remember the night, my heart will ache. My sighs are long and deep as I realize that I was home again, and not even able to appreciate it when I was there. For while I miss the view, and the way the light plays through the rooms, I miss most the people who filled those rooms. I miss their voices, their touch, the soft scent that means home. And I hope for more dreams to return me there.