Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again
I toss and turn, but sleep evades me tonight.
Once in my youth, it seemed that I spent as many hours dreaming as I did awake, immersed in a labyrinth of dreams that were always vivid, often lucid, at times amazing and at others, terrifying. Until one day, the dreams dried up. And except for the occasional dreams I awoke to in the morning or, worse, the nap dreams I struggled to wake from,1 I simply stopped remembering. Yet in recent months, after years of forgetting, I find myself dreaming once again.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.
Though I have yet to see it in my dreams, I too have a Manderley of my own—a place that haunts and a place my heart aches for—so much so that I would recall the opening line of a book2 I first read in my teens and find the words fitting.
We would not talk of Manderley, I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more.
I think of my usual commute and the streets that lead to my home. I recite the train stops on my route just to be sure that I still remember. I imagine myself at the park by the river. But my memory is foggy and the picture in my mind unclear. It's not that I've forgotten, but I cannot picture these places clearly anymore, the way I remember them to be, and I hate that. I don't want to forget.
But how can I ever fight time and tide? Oh, what I would give to walk those streets again, even if in a dream. And on such a sleepless night, this is all I know—
I think of my Manderley. I think of my Vienna.