I was driving a car with my two sons in Fairfield. The road was an unfamiliar one and rather busy with traffic. A dirt road on the opposite side of the street caught my attention, as a possible refuge from all the cars, so I turned in. A house was situated to the left of the dirt road and a man was raking his yard to the right. The road was severely rutted and forced me to slow down because we were rocking so badly. A short distance up this bouncy trail, on the right hand side, was another dirt road, which I decided to take. The condition of this road was the same so I maintained an unhurried pace. In fact, I slowed down even more, for there was a woman in the road up ahead. It appeared as though she was doing some sort of yard, or roadwork. From what I could tell she was quite elderly. Her appearance was reminiscent of the Old Country, like a Polish farm woman with a babushka on her head. There was an idyllic aura to the setting; her cottage, just to the left of the road, had all the quaint, bucolic attributes that one might find in a romantic kitsch painting. A slow, curling spire of smoke arose from the chimney; the walls were encroached rather beautifully with vines and flowers. The home itself was nestled in a corner of nature’s bounty: trees and bushes were like a shroud about its frame. As I got closer to the woman, I realized there was another car traveling close behind me. I slowed down to a snails pace and saw that the old woman was examining the silver plumed end of an enormous swamp reed. I took an overall view of my surroundings and could see there were several acres of tufted swamp grass. These reeds, however, were not your typical garden-variety swamp reeds. Some of them soared into the sky like skyscrapers. The plume that the woman held in her hand had its stalk bent way down; its foreshortened stem vanished into the distant landscape. Holding the reed end she said, “Look, it has babies.” I struggled to see what she was talking about but could not. At that point, I noticed my vehicle was a convertible, so when she let go of the reed I was able to grab hold of it before it sprung back up into the heavens, My reasoning was to hold it high enough so the car behind me could drive beneath it as well – a rather impossible feat, I might add, but this was a dream after all. I don’t remember letting go of the reed and I never found out what the “babies” were that she had referred to. Suddenly, the dirt road came to an end and opened onto a large circular, grassy field surrounded by woods and giant swamp reeds. The sky was a glorious blue and I marveled at the height and beauty of those gently swaying swamp fronds.

The only son who was with me now was Sam and he ws very young. I prepared the stroller and contemplated which direction I should take him in. If I went straight ahead it would bring me out somewhere near the center of town and the Fairfield library. If I entered the pathway to the right it would bring me out to Rowland Road, the road I grew up on until I was about six or seven years old. I pondered which of these options would offer Sam the most satisfaction and decided to go towards Rowland Road. The decision really didn’t make a whole lot of sense, since Fairfield center would certainly have been more entertaining than my childhood environment.

For some reason, even though the area I was in was unfamiliar, I knew exactly where that trail would bring me: right across the street from Bruce Perrin’s house, where a very small cul-de-sac existed. That particular location is memorable because as a young boy I used to play with the other neighboring kids on our tricycles and pedal driven cars. One day, while in the midst of this particular activity, we were all traveling in a bumper-to-bumper circle, possibly imitating what we as children perceived our parents doing on a daily basis. The only difference was we would occasionally bump into one another. In all honesty, I was probably a little more zealous, in that regard, than the rest of the children. The person in front of me, however, did not share my enthusiasm for hitting his car with my tricycle. He stepped out of his vehicle selected a very large rock and threw it at my head. I immediately stopped hitting his vehicle with my bike and just as quickly began to bleed profusely from the front of my skull. I wailed all the way home where mom patched me up and made me ready for another day of battle in the streets.

Fortunately, the pathway was well maintained. The trail through the woods was about five feet wide and easy to navigate the stroller on. My perspective was constantly peering down at Sam, or rather the stroller, which held Sam, and my heart ached because I wished I had had more time to luxuriate in his existence as a child. With those thoughts in mind I wanted to take a better look at him and it was then that I noticed he was sitting in water. In my head I screamed, “Oh my God, how long has he been in the water?” How could I have been so ignorant not to have noticed? When I looked at him again he had leaned over and was partially submerged in the water. I was horrified and immediately picked him up. All I could think was that I didn’t even have any change of clothes for him, here, or back at the car. How could I have been so stupid not to travel with a change of clothes or even a blanket? Lifting him under his armpits, I stared directly in his face and could see everything was okay. His eyes were a gorgeous luminescent green; I looked behind me, in the direction of his gaze, to see what was making them appear so incredible, I thought maybe it was the color of the sky, or the trees themselves that had caused this remarkable effect. Nothing revealed itself as a proper rationale for his extraordinary eye color. It was as though I was really seeing them for the very first time and they were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. I tipped the stroller over on its side to empty the water out and situated Sam somewhat higher in it so he wouldn’t be on the wet seat. We walked a short ways and the next time I looked down at the stroller I noticed there was an apple core atop its small awning. It wasn’t a whole apple core but just one end. Almost a perfect pyramid in shape. It had been neatly eaten; manicured would be a more accurate term, for there were no teeth marks whatsoever. A few steps further and then I knelt down next to Sam and asked him how he was doing. There was a small amount of mucus emanating from his nose and he said, “I’ve got the sniffles.” You’re all right, Sammy” I said and added, “You’ll be okay.”

We were near the end of the woods now, just a series of ‘s’ curves to go through and then we would be out. The width of the trail had gotten smaller and all around us, suspended in the trees, were small sculptures strung like ornaments. These ornaments did not reflect Christmas however; they were decorations for a different purpose. I can’t describe any of them; they were fairly ambiguous, even in the dream. They did seem to portray a variety of sizes and shapes and had the essence of being quite odd – and I don’t remember color as being a critical component. At the base of some trees were miniature displays, like micro environments for diminutive dwarfs to live in. I was turning around in all directions to try and see all that there was to see, when my eye caught sight of a previous dream. It was either a déjà vu in my dream or I was experiencing a visual memory from a previous dream. What I saw was my sister, dad and the rest of my family entering the woods from a nearby pathway. I could see them through the trees, but they couldn’t or didn’t see me. I felt like I was invisible to them; an observer to an event that had already transpired. In their hands they carried sculptural creations to hang in the trees. I was witnessing something that had happened before. This was a place people came to decorate the woods for special occasions, but not Christmas or any other holiday. It was a place and time for the family to gather and share a unified experience.

When I awoke I remembered that earlier in the evening I had had another dream, which seemed to correspond with this one quite well. In that short dream, I was in an art room of sorts. I call it a room but it was more like a small hallway, or closet because it was not very wide. There were some desks to work on and my sister and dad were making some ceramic projects of their own design. I was trying to locate some materials that they could add to their creations and also withstand the temperature of the kiln. What I found on the shelving, that was located at the end of the hallway / room, were some large four inch paperclips that could be incorporated into the clay. The paperclips were rust colored in appearance and fireproof. I brought them over to my dad and Pam for them to use. I don’t recall anymore beyond that but upon reflection I believed these were the same creations brought to the woods and hung in the trees.