There is a place. It is a place in my dreams.

The place is just down the road, probably off the corner of Walnut and 14 mile. It's always off a corner, never adjacent. The place is in the woods, or rather, it is the woods. It’s close but it “contains multitudes” (to quote Whitman, or better yet, Bobby D). I have entered it off Walnut and emerged near Bent-tree, Bennett Park, and even upstate Washington. (These places aren’t near each other.)

I’ve wandered The Place and discovered friends from grade school, likewise wandering. Sometimes they’re my age, sometimes they don’t age. Sometimes they’re long dead. But not in The Place. In The Place, they are fishing. Or building a tree fort. Or sword fighting with sticks — very much alive. One time there was a dinosaur. I was four and terrified. That’s how long I've visited this place.

Describing the place overlooks its importance. Because The Place is not a place. I mean, obviously, it is a place, otherwise why the name? But the place is also a person. He is my dad, and he’s almost always with me there. The whole purpose of The Place is to spend time with dad. Sometimes we are cutting and gathering wood. Sometimes we’re hunting. Sometimes we say we’re hunting but we’re just walking with no guns. (It’s funny how in dreams we can forget something important but act like nothing’s wrong.)

One time we entered off Walnut and discovered an illegal lumber operation — logging, cutting, and storing lumber. It was illegal because The Place is always public land — either state or federally owned. We helped ourselves to some firewood and fucked off home. We could hear the trucks and skidders and harvesters beeping and grinding in the background. Machines are not welcome in The Place because their cacophony disrupts the natural sound of the forest.

My dad passed recently and I’ve looked forward to visiting him again in The Place. That’s the corner of my subconscious he dwells. It’s a safe and quiet place where we can share coffee from a thermos and catch up. But I haven’t been back since that day. I’ve meant to, but I haven’t managed to find myself there. It’s free to visit, but I bought a ticket anyway. And it's been burning a hole in my pocket ever since.