I was driving around my hometown, the little roads winding through the woods. I was on my way home. I thought about how I often have dreams about how to get home, whether by car or on foot, which roads to take and where to cut through the woods. And I thought about how it always seems impossible to cut through the woods in these dreams.

Mom was driving us home from somewhere. Dad was there too I think. We had to get on I-84, through Hartford. We got lost among the city streets. She was pretty sure one of them led east, back to the highway, but I wasn’t. We unfolded a map and looked. We were on foot now. I looked around to get our bearings. We were in an open plaza with a monument in the middle. There was a blanket of snow. This is the state capitol, I realized, so it shouldn’t be hard to find on the map. There it was right in the middle. We should know where to go from here.

I was squeezed into the back of a small car, sitting in the middle. S’s cousin M. was driving. We were all going somewhere we’d gone before, with him driving before. The surroundings grew bizarre. People sat in the middle of the street and you had to zigzag to get by them. It was territory occupied by the politically hostile. They were clamoring, taunting. I worried we might not get through. M. understeered a slow corner and crashed into a pylon or abutment, but he was able to back out and keep going. 

Jackie and I were driving in winter, through an unfamiliar place with steep hills. We tried different side roads, parked, got out and climbed through the ice and snow. We found a great view of the surrounding valley and town but I was worried she’d slide down the ice. We had to be careful.

M.B. called me to say that he was hurt by something I’d said. I tried desperately to call him back and make it right.

I was in some strange village with friends, people from my past and present, celebrating New Years. I asked someone if they were going to party tonight and he said he wasn’t sure, because of what was going on. He indicated some development in the news. I realized it was riots in England due to Covid restrictions.

I was driving on a highway, trying to get home, trying not to fall asleep. I wondered if I was running out of gas, but couldn’t focus on the dashboard. It was hard to stay in my lane. As I swerved over the line I checked the rearview mirror but it was facing the wrong way. My turn signal was on for no reason.