“I don’t like when the sky gets dark so early.”
“That’s what happens in the winter, Roy. The days are a lot shorter and colder because our side of the planet is farther away from the sun.”
“The trees look beautiful without leaves, don’t they, Mom?”
“I like when it’s sunny and cold. It makes my skin feel so good. We’ll stop soon, baby, in Door County. I’m a little tired.”
“I think I dream better in winter.”
“Maybe because you sleep more.”
“Mom, what do you think of dreams?”
“What do I think of them?”
“Yeah. I mean, what are they? Are they real?”
“Sure, they’re real. Sometimes you find out things in dreams that you can’t any other way.”
“Like what?”
“Some experts think dreams are wishes. You dream about what you really want to happen.”
“Once I dreamed that I was running in a forest and wolves were chasing me. There was a real big red wolf that caught me in deep snow and started eating one of my legs. Then I woke up. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“Maybe it meant something else. Also, dreams depend on what’s happening around you at the time. Dreams are full of symbols.”
“What’s a symbol?”
“Something that represents something else, like the red wolf in your dream. The red wolf was a symbol of a fear or desire.”
“I was afraid of the wolf because I didn’t want him to bite me.”
“Do you remember anything else about the dream?”
“The red wolf didn’t have any eyes, only dark holes where his eyes were supposed to be.”
“This sounds like a case for Sigmund Freud.”
“Is he a detective?”
“No, baby, he was a doctor who studied dreams and wrote about them.”
“If I’d had a gun I would have shot that wolf.”
“It’s not always so easy to get rid of something that’s chasing you, because it’s inside your own mind.”
“You mean the red wolf is hiding in my brain?”
“Don’t worry, Roy, the wolf won’t bother you again. You woke up before he could hurt you.”
“The sky’s all dark now. Mom, is desire bad or good?”
“It can be either, depending on what it is and why a person desires something.”
“A person can’t decide not to dream.”
“No, baby, dreams either come or they don’t. We’ll stay at the Ojibway Inn. Remember that motel with the Indian chief on the sign?”
“I bet everybody has scary dreams sometimes.”
“Of course they do.”
“I hope the red wolf is chasing somebody else now.”