Travels in the night

The family farm. View from the top of the hill, 1950.

Thursday night I had a dream that I was standing on top of the hill across the street from my parents' house overlooking the family farm as it was like when I was growing up. It was in the middle of the night and I was barefoot and in my nightgown. I had my camera and I was taking pictures of the farm in the dark, in the snow, well aware that I was standing on snow and it was not cold. I was thinking that this was my favorite place to be. It crossed my mind how I would get back down the long hill with no shoes and a bum knee, but the thought was fleeting.

I kept taking pictures and looking at them in the LCD screen. I had the ones all picked out that I was going to post on FB. Although I can only remember one of the photos now. I could see a silhouette of myself in the photo and wondered to myself how I could take the picture and be in it at the same time.

Then I woke up (or so I thought) in my old bedroom at my parents' house with the camera right next to my bed. I grabbed it looking for all the pictures. They were gone. My husband came in and I was telling him about the pictures as I frantically looked again and again through my digital photos. My husband told me I must have dreamed it all. But I knew it wasn't a dream. I took those pictures and they self destructed like a message from an episode of Mission Impossible.

I woke up (this time for real) in my own bed and I thought that it was a good idea to go up the hill and take pictures of the farm in the winter. In that moment my head cleared and I realized I had been dreaming and then I remembered how everything was gone now. The farm, the buildings, and the farmers.

I thought about my dream all day long, how empowering it felt to be standing up on that hill in the middle of the night and even though everything is gone in real time, it is still there in heart and soul and possibly in another dimension far away.