Dream Interpreter

There's this dream I have sometimes. The woods out behind the first house I ever lived in. I'm wandering through them, but not aimlessly. I know these woods; I'm making my way purposely through them, back to the house, the pond, the driveway. 

There I am now, learning to ride my bike. Dad is behind me. But that's a different memory.

I already know the truth about this dream: I don't know those woods very well. I stayed closer to the house in those early days. I'd come back to explore them in later years, a town-dweller back for a visit.

Maybe I dream about them because they are completely left to the imagination; there's no reality there. I don't know them at all.

___________________________

I miss that place, the country, land that my family called their own. Now,  someone else's name is on the deed - the old barn, the hay loft, the fields of pine trees.

Another dream I'm remembering now. I'm circling the garden; it's big. There are vegetables here, but I can't tell who tends them. There's no sign of Papa; I feel alone out here. Desolate. Haunted, even. But someone is keeping, tending this garden, I can see this.

Now, I'm in it, right there among the tomato vines. I know this place better than the woods but still, not enough. In the later years, I simply passed by, never to go inside. What kept me away? What did I miss?

Everything, I'm afraid.