I used to keep detailed a detailed dream diary. The first entry was sometime in 1978 because I thought that dream would make a great story someday and I didn't want to forget it. Over time, I started writing in every dream upon waking and the little book filled so that I was reduced to writing in very tiny lettering and started reusing the white space at the bottom of the first pages.

Of all the things I've lost over the years, I miss that diary. Sometime in 1981, a "friend" of my Army roomate's and mine swiped it, for reasons unknown. Maybe she thought it was a real diary and she'd learn some cool gossip. By the time I realized it was missing and knew who'd taken it, she'd been transferred elsewhere and I mourned the loss and never kept another diary as detailed. Still, when a dream came to me upon waking, sometimes I jot it down on scraps of paper. I still find these scraps sometimes when I dig through boxes and as I read them, I can see the dream unfolding again.

Over time, I've noticed that I often dream about the road I grew up on in Hawaii. The buildings along it change, the placement of the high school is sometimes different, but I know that road. I also dream about being at my high school and less frequently, my grade school. When I first separated from my exhusband, my dreams started including my new second floor apartment, usually with me standing in the bedroom which overlooked the parking lot and something tragic unfolding -- fire, floods, the end of the world, the other half of my apartment being torn away and leaving me at the top of my stairway.

And then there is another place. I've never seen it in waking life but I often dream of it. Sometimes the buildings change but I always recognize it. When I see parts of it, I can in my dreaming and waking minds place that particular location within the larger map of this unknown city. It is built on rolling hills and is very urbanized, with homes and apartments along the upper slopes and as the roads wind down and around, they invariably lead to a 'downtown' area with a couple of hotels, some restaurants (I was at the Korean one last night) and shops. Sometimes, a bay is on this town's edge and other times not. I wonder why my brain chooses to recreate this place for me so consistently that I know it by heart. On occasion, it seems like Seattle, and sure enough those are times where I'll be standing on the intersection of Pike and Boren, overlooking downtown but the rest of the town will melt into "my place" and the distinction is blurred.

I like this place, though. It's comforting to me to be dreaming about having sushi in the Korean restaurant with my cousin and thinking (in my dream) that when we leave we can step across the street to the shop that I know is there.