Scribbled on pieces of paper years ago. Stashed under a pile only to be rediscovered recently. A transcript of a dream evidently recalled just after I woke up…
1.
I woke up camping beside a cliff. I could see and hear a creek in the distance. And there was a cave. My grandmother is there, already awake (as usual) when I get up. Atypically, she has a camera and is taking pictures. We wake up Ben. He goes off somewhere with friends.
How did the car get here? I have a vague memory of driving thru brush the night before, but that is all I can remember. It must have been late, and I must have been tired for me not to remember anything else.
2.
Not far down the road, after driving thru many rocky passes and over some mountains, we find a place to eat breakfast.
It is busy. There are many people seated inside, including John who taught me composting many years ago. I tell him about our camp site with the cave and the creek. He knows the place but is not impressed. Evidently is was private property, and he doesn’t approve.
3.
There are holes to be dug and posts to set. And of course, on my third swing, I miss the mark, and the sledgehammer handle breaks. [Don’t ask why a sledgehammer was the right tool for driving posts.] John has some kind of miracle glue, and fixes the handle. It seems as if the head will slide off the end of the handle, and everyone chooses to stand way back as I resume swinging.
I take mighty swings with my mended sledge, but I end up pounding a post thru the side of my large galvanized tub and break the handle again.
4.
I buy cinnamon rolls for Ben and another guy we’re traveling with. They’re five for a dollar, but I only buy four. I end up paying a dollar, anyway. The two of them stop talking and eat. I drive off [leaving them behind?] looking for a road back into the mountains.
All the side roads are private drives with locked gates. Mountains rise up on either side of the road, but the gated roads are all on the left. I continue up the main road and come to a gate with a cowboy standing next to a horse. He’s looking at a pile of brush. I stop, get out, and walk up to the gate and ask him if I may watch, to which he replies “Yes.” So as he begins to work, I lean against the gate and eat my cinnamon roll, which has transformed into a cupcake.
A group of kids walks up from somewhere — further up the main road maybe, or from the other side of the road, or from the man’s driveway on the other side of the gate.
5.
[On the next page, there is a map. It shows the gated drives that wind up into the mountains. It shows the main road running thru a valley from the café with the cinnamon rolls. And it shows the site of the sledgehammer pounding, which evidently was at a rest stop. Far to the northwest, it shows the camping spot beside the creek.]
6.
The group of kids who showed up are on some sort of tour. They’re led by a tall woman who is talking with animated gestures. I watch and listen. They disappear into a building, which I hadn’t noticed before [but which seems to be indicated on the map]. The cowboy tells me that the woman hasn’t been feeling well, but she is so good with kids.
Some other folks show up. We begin talking, and they invite me over to a deck under a shaded trellis. They tell me the story of this place. How it’s a private club.
7.
These people are evidently retirees, and they complain how the club benefits decrease when you retire, yet you still must pay the same membership fee.
We talk some more, and then I excuse myself to go back to the gate where the cowboy had been standing with his horse. But I take a wrong turn and instead of returning to the site of the cowboy and horse, I find myself in the mountains. I can see more buildings along the road. I realize that I must have taken a wrong turn. So I turn around to retrace my steps.