The farm has felt familiar to me from the day we moved in. Whether it's the similarities to my childhood home- things like an oak at the corner of the driveway, or the pebbled cement walkway, or the gatherings of particular song birds- I have a sense of belonging. The house creaks under our feet and although they aren't creaking from years of our own steps, they are creaks I have heard before, like a distant memory.
The truth is that the life that I am living now is being plucked directly from my imagination, straight from endless daydreams. The feeling of this place over the last six months has gone beyond familiarity. It is composed of frequent and dizzyingly vivid remembrances. Deja Vu stops me in my tracks frequently. I have had at least one episode a month and when we first moved it was weekly. The episodes come during observances of very mundane, everyday events. Sitting in a rocking chair in L's room, cutting the boys' hair out on the deck, snowshoeing along a tree line. Even while watching a kitten eat. He was sitting on his haunches and dipped his head down to grab a bite when the bowl wobbled slightly. He placed a paw gently on the edge of the bowl, steadying it as he finished his meal.
All the events have been dreamy in quality- a lovely silver lining as I watch the dreams play out. I've either lived it before or I will see it again as an outsider looking in.
One theory I have has to do with being an absolute voracious reader as a youngster. I've pondered if I read a passage in a book that described one of these scenes- a kitten steadying a bowl with a paw must be a common enough occurrence- and conjured up the scene in my head. Now, witnessing it in person, my brain tagged that conjured scene and so I've felt as if I've seen it before.... and indeed I have, although only in my imagination. It must be that Deja Vu includes daydreams, and the living out of vivid imagined scenes.
My episodes are memories of a daydream. After all, I've daydreamed about living on a farm for many years. I somehow always knew I'd have boys. It was inevitable I'd end up close to nature. These episodes aren't coming from my subconscious. They are remembrances of vivid, earnest, conscious dreams.
My life is catching up to my imagination. I am living in a dream come true.
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