The Door to Dawn

I always end up here at the oak tree. I allow the limbs to reach under my armpits and ferry me up to the topmost branches. I go as high as my fear will let me. Leaning back, I let the tree cradle me. I lay quietly. I listen. I can hear the tree growing. The roots churn through the soil, the limbs cracking and snapping—stretching toward the sun. Finally, I understand that in the woods nothing exists forever. This will be gone one day, and so will I.

From my vantage point I see my house, but behind me there is another. Hidden deep in the woods, a chimney rises up among the trees like a beacon. I am drawn to it. I know I will find my way there, because, somehow, I have already been there. I have always been there.

Long before we moved to the neighborhood I dreamt of a house. At the time, I didn’t understand the significance of the dream. I considered it a nightmare to be quickly forgotten. In the dream I am standing before its doorstep. I am a GI Joe doll. Articulated feet connected to legs connected to a sexless torso. Hands connected to arms, arms to shoulders, neck to head. But where my face should be there’s a moon pie of nothingness. A curtain’s pulled back in a window. The door opens. I watch myself stumble up the steps grasping the air for purpose. When I exit, whatever’s in the house has defined me. I breathe. I see. I taste.