Aaron Gets a House

Aaron found a house for himself last night. Kind of a big place. He chose to set up his living space in the basement. Complete with a fireplace and all of the previous tenant's junk, Aaron was as happy as could be. One man's junk was Aaron's treasure--broken toys in one area, old orange couch in front of two TV sets, broken tools piled on a work bench, a battery operated lantern. Instead of removing the junk, Aaron organized it. Goodtimes.

Cathy and I had dinner with some of Aaron's childhood friends this past week. As parents we all knew this was a special group of kids from the earliest days. Almost brothers and sisters, they stayed close through typical good times and shockingly bad days. Beginning their fourth year in college and world travelers their adolescent personalities have matured but not vanished. Maybe that's why my dream last night saw Aaron excited and happy with rummaged stuff in his own house--you can take the boy to heaven, but you can't take the boy out of the angel.

In my dream Cathy and Patrick had loaded PT's car with firewood for Aaron---first indication this was not reality would be PT letting anyone put a dirty log in his ride. I'm as practical asleep as awake--"You don't even know the fireplace works and you're giving him all of my wood???" I go to the house with them to check the fireplace and then pretend I know what I'm looking for--that would be real. Aaron shows us all of his cool stuff that "came with the house". Lucky guy, owner of new junk.

Now that he has his own place, Aaron is ready to take up deer hunting--he's asking for a deer hunting rifle. I told him Uncle Todd has a huge selection. "When could I pick one up?" Anytime Air Bear. Anytime.

With my back to the dream I slowly rise to awareness. The image of Aaron in my dream fades and I'm standing alone sorting out what is from what is not. The pieces fall into place as my brain reorganizes dates and days and tragedy. Dreams are framed and placed on the shelves with the photographs--the only proof that yesterday happened.

The past closely resembles a dream. We remember what can of yesterday. We can tell about it, write about it, but we can't go there. We say the past is real but it is only real to the extent that we remember, and we remember only some of the past. Maybe dreams are real. Maybe the true self of people who have passed can visit our true self in a higher level of consciousness we call dreams. Cameras are a tool to record the past. Maybe one day Kodak will snap images of dreams. Aaron will be smiling.