Dreams of my Fathers, The Path in the Woods
A dream of long walks. The destination long forgotten, yet so familiar.
Back when I was just a little boy, I had a dream. It has recurred at least a few times, although I cant remember now how many exactly. Whether it is the first fully formed dream I experienced I cannot say, but its the earliest one that I can remember, so that gives it some amount of importance. When I say that it recurred to me, I say that loosely. I surely did have this dream a few times in a similar form, its not a very complicated or visually striking dream, or even quite long. Though instead, its persistence in my memory is due to the feelings it creates when its surfaces, its strange connection with seemingly so much more.
I grew up on a small farm in the woods. It was not especially deep in the woods, but rural enough that as a child I only knew the single road we lived on, I could see it from my second floor bedroom window. Beyond the borders of our little field the world was as unknown and mysterious to my young mind as the the moon. Our property was a long strip stretching north to south with our red brick house and front yard at the south, a large few acres of mowed yard in the middle and our horse barn and long narrow pasture leading out to the north. The whole of it, I’m told by my parents, was only perhaps six acres or so. To me it may have been thousands. We had a long gravel drive that slid out between the neighbors from the southern tip where the house was, There were two neighbors down at the end of the drive on our road and I could see their houses but I had never met them. The road we lived on could be traveled quite quickly by people in the country so as a child, walking past “the bend” halfway down was strictly off limits, except when being held by the hand. There were other neighbors with a few acre parcels to the right of our long strip, but it was just a continuous mowed back yard as far as I cared. I had met some of the nice neighbors over there but mostly all I knew was there was a long straight line on which if I crossed I was no longer on ”our property” and one shouldn’t go poking around in other’s business... Again, unless I was being held by the hand. The entire left side, the west was a farm owned by a family which no longer resided there. Through the trees outside our back door was a few old barns and sheds with tar paper roofs, and a large two floor farmhouse in a pine grove. I never saw life there, and the few walks I had ventured over, all I remember is old piles of cans and glass, a tractor with a collapsed roof on it and just a poor broken down farm. In my memory, a sad loss of potential.
Being a small boy, traveling around the yard was a pretty long adventure by my standards. In the evenings I would walk with my father to do the evening chores. Most of my clearest memories are from winter. I remember my dark blue pants and hooded coat snapped tightly around my chin, and matching blue mittens. My father would always be in his old long tattered barn coat of the same dark blue color, spattered in brown mud wit the pockets falling off and filling poking from the seams. He always wore a hat of some sort. It would either be an old knit tossle cap or a worn fuzzy driving cap. In the coldest days I remember him wrapping up tightly in an old scarf, just his round gold rim glasses and brown mustache poking out over the top of it. We would walk(or perhaps I would be carried in those cold early days) the long old concrete slab path from our back porch to the shed, the halfway point. We would turn on the spotlights to the yard and plug in the cable that ran out to the barn to power the lights. Then make our way out to feed the dogs in their runs and then the horses in the barn. Some of my earliest memories are of him placing me up on the lumber rails of the barn stalls to sit in my winter clothes, while the horses ran in from the dark to be fed. When I was strong enough I wait and hand him an old hammer or rusted tie-out stake so he could break the ice in their stall buckets. I could not see above the doors, but can still see the sway of the horse’s backs above the stalls as they stood with their heads down and hear them softly chewing at their grain and hay. I would reach under the small space under the stall door with a handful of grass to beckon them down so I could pet their noses as they rooted around for the extra treat. These are my first memories, and they are of being outside. The yard, the field, the barn and pasture that ran high up over one of the highest hills in the area, down the back of the hill on the other side, surrounded by woods. All these things I remember fondly, the many days spend wandering around as a clueless and curious child in while my father tended to the animals.
The more mysterious edges of my small rural world were the fields and wood behind the abandoned farm. Right behind our shed was a small gateway in the dense woods that surrounded our property. This lead to the old field. Ours and this field was separated by a strip of wood that ran the entirety of the west of our property up and over the hill. If you walked through the gateway you would be in a land of high grasses and briar, the owners would only mow it every odd year. The first time I explored it with my father he had to point out to me there was another old country road beyond its western edge, and to not get too close. It seemed miles away at the time, and I remember not even believing him until I saw the glint of a car window as it slid through the spaces in the grass. Even now I don’t think I’ve ever walked to that road more than once. It was in these expeditions that I would follow my father through this old field to its norther border, where there was a narrow path leading up the great hill that held up the dense woods and our pasture to the east. The path itself was always dark and shaded. It was a hard walk as a little boy and the last time I walked it as an man it was still just as steep and winding. When we would finally crest the mountain through the woods there was another much larger area that lead down the back of the hill on the other side. It was always quite a walk, and we only went the when we had spare hours and the weather was good.
This distant place was extremely unique. Even as a man I look back at it and wonder what collection of events lead to its appearance. To the best of my father’s knowledge, long before my parents moved to our home, whoever owned the place had the bright idea that they should sell it for development, this of course never came to fruition. However, in what one can only assume was preparation for this eventuality, they had brought in heavy equipment and stripped most of the topsoil down to clay and shale in the entire space. The entire property was then just left to sit, and in the years after this, the loose clay had been raked and cut by erosion. My father had nicknamed it “the badlands” on account of it being a miniature likeness. Its most striking feature was the expansive network of huge ditches and gullies created by years of eroding the back of the big steep mountain, all cut directly into the soft pale yellow clay. Most were deep enough that my small self and later my brother could disappear into them, even my father could find a few that were almost head high. They would snake down the hillside avoiding the islands of fast growing trees and scrubby briar. The land was dotted with scrub pine, bright lichen and moss and the wild, hearty trees that had managed to grow in the clay. The whole scene was categorically out of place for the deciduous countryside.
The badlands now mark an area of note, as we never ventured more than halfway through them. The lower end of the hill was a dense tangle of trees and swampy plant life left from its industrial scarring. By this point in a walk, we were now quite far from our home and would typically turn back. In truth, when I was older I learned this property extended to another road acting as a northern border to not only that but the woods that began after our own pastures ended, but we never made it that far ourselves. If one walked the great hill of our own pasture and down the other side again they would find themselves in the deep far end of a neighboring farm and a thick old wood that lead all they way out to the border. We did not typically go that far either as there wasn’t much there of note. Once when my brother and I were old enough to walk with a shotgun, we went with my father deep into that area and sat and waited for turkey, to no avail of course, but I though the adventure was worth it at least.
This world fully encompasses the whole of my memory as a child, and the entirety of my earliest memories. In the 1980’s Pennsylvania countryside the world is not a very complicated place, especially for a boy yet too small to have any responsibilities on a farm. We did not have cable television, the old TV set that eventually went into my room only had 3 channels until middle school. In the earliest times my brother was not quite yet old enough to join us outside, and my sister had not yet even been conceived. So, the outside was my playpen, whenever I was bored.
The first time I had the dream, that is, the first time I remember having the dream. I was still very young. As I mention before, this dream is unique in the fact that is the first dream I can remember. I have had it many times since in different forms.
I begin at my back yard, near our old shed. I am the age I am in my waking hours. In its earliest iteration I am with my father. In later versions he sometimes is no longer with me, and at rare times my younger brother and sister are in tow. It is temperate and the fields and trees are spring green. We walk through the wooded gateway to the farm to the west, grown in over time, and we head through the field of high uncut grasses and dense flowers. We are always traveling quickly, and my father does not speak but maintains the same demeanor he always had when we went on walks. His head is down and he walks with a pleasant look on his face he had when we would wander to the barn and looks up to check our progress every now and then. He still wears his worn driving cap with his gold rim glasses and still has the same mustache as when I was young. We arrive at the winding path and without stopping, begin to bound up it in great strides. It is still as steep and narrow but we make quick work nonetheless. He always moves faster than I do. In dreams where he is not there I still feel the rush of trying to keep up, trying to arrive somewhere I know I should be already.
We arrive at the top of the hill and look down on the badlands. They are the same except for their magnitude. The few acres is now many, and the clay ditches are deep and expansive. At the top of the hill I can see for miles. Beyond the colors of clay earth and bright lichen I can see a forest, it starts at the bottom of the hill past the confluence of gullies and stretches up over another mountain farther. It is a lush and thick forest of green, that stretches beyond the edge I can see. When I see it I feel the pull. I can feel it in my chest, the butterflies of excitement and joyful apprehension. What lies ahead brings me great happiness and relief. I feel myself begin to smile and we continue on. My father’s demeanor does not change, my joy for the trip ahead is contrasted by his temperance, he walks as if we’ve already been there. It is with the same pleasant lead he always had when go exploring. Even though the mountainous ditches of clay appear to block us we seem to pass them quickly as we make our way down the hill. Their great appearance seems to only be a trick of the light as we stroll along. They seem huge in the distance but as we come closer each great chasm shrink to a small ditch over which we step easily.
When we reach the bottom of the hill there is no longer the impassable tangle of trees as in reality, but there is only a thin wall of shrubs in which we continue through. It is green and the ground is firm. We are at the bottom of the valley now, a place where I had never been in waking life. In this place is a small road, a single lane, traveling east west like a border. Looking left and right I can see it cuts directly through the huge beautiful forest I saw from the hilltop. It is arrow straight and the northern edge is walled in both directions by the tall forest a head. It silhouettes itself against the blue sky. Across from us is a cut-out in the forest, a long straight path that leads perpendicularly from the road. It dips ahead of us and then inclines again up towards the far hilltop. The space is cleanly cut from the trees and the grass is field cut the same way an industrial power line would be. It is mostly grass, but there are large brown rocks buried in the ground. They are large enough to climb on but not so big to hinder our walk. I have seen this place in different forms many times. Every time slightly different from the last, as if I am only returning on different days of the week or times of the day. Sometimes the stones are grey salty limestone, sometimes brown clay shale. In some dreams there is an old concrete and steel rail bridge only a few more yards in to the woods over the way ahead. It has worn white lettering on the old blackened steel beams crossing just above our path.
In all forms of this dream, directly ahead of me is something that I cannot wait to return to. It is a place I know I have been, but I cannot remember it. The anticipation of arriving there runs through my limbs like lighting. I know I have been beyond the forest before, up and over the mountain ahead, I am absolutely sure of it. The memory is like a beacon in my mind. It lies ready to burst with all the joy and realization of the previous experience. The feeling is so strong, the pull of the place ahead is magnetic. This feeling is present every time I experience the dream. In times later in my life when I know I have returned in some lucid fashion, I cannot wait for it. Perhaps this is why we travel so fast. From the start I know what lies ahead and my only desire is to get further and further and the feelings increase as the dream continues.
We cross the road, My father is on my right. He looks up at me and then back to the path. In versions where my siblings are present, they follow him in line like ducklings. I am always on the left walking on my own. I am elated in this moment. I want to travel further. I feel so happy. My father steps across onto the shoulder, I make my way to the other side of the road. I look up again as he steps down into the grass, and the dream ends.
I wake every time I attempt to return the place over the mountain. Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes at dawn. I have been to that destination only once it seems, and each time after that I am denied entry. One could say its a trick of the mind, that its just a recurring dream and there is no meaning beyond the false emotions it creates. This solution appears logical. However, when I strain to think all the way back to when my my memories formed, I believed these urges. I believe that once, early in my life, we walked the path and found our destination. Then for a reason I do not know it was washed from my mind like a beautiful picture made in sand, blown away by a gust of wind when I looked away. The hidden image, the place where the feeling lies is still there, yet a cover has been pulled over my memory. Deep in my mind, when I concentrate my hardest, I think I can begin to see the fragments of what was, but I cannot hold onto even the smallest piece for even a moment. The space in my mind has been wiped so clean that I cant even manifest anything there, any facsimile I can imagine simply isn’t enough to satisfy the desire I experience in the dream Each time the feelings are so pleasant, the draw is so engrossing that when the dream ends I do not necessary feel disappointed, because eventually, I know I will have the dream again, and therein lies another chance at the walk. So it sits in my mind, A far off plane, inaccessible.
Now, as a man, when it returns to me it always gives me days to ponder before it wanders off into the dark of forgetfulness. Apparently, pushed on by the struggle to remember what it is I cannot find. Perhaps its a dreamy memory of a joy I no longer have, or a remembered experience the surprise and happiness of which could happen once. A time and place that will never exist again. It has effected me so, that sometimes when I have new experiences I often have to force my self to remember, remember that this time may be the only time. This may be the last time with these people.
Have I lost the place over the mountain? Perhaps it was my first sin, to take for granted something so wonderful and move quickly on and forget. As one grows older its easy to forget after so many new challenges that new things still exist, and that a new challenge may not be a hindrance but rather another opportunity, even just so small. But, for now, all one can do it try to remember. To remember the amazing places I once arrived long ago and will hopefully return, hopefully I will not be alone.