The Sycamore Tree

I can see it as if it were yesterday -- the big old sycamore tree in our front yard.  I was only 5 or 6 years old and this tree seemed enormous.  It was a favorite place of mine in the center of the front yard.  I loved to lie on the ground on summer days and look up through its branches at the glimpses of blue sky and white, fluffy clouds.  And that's where I dreamed imagining the clouds were moving along with me to places of fantasy, strange places and transporting me to another time and place. 

That's what dreams are about at any age, aren't they?  Another place, another time, another country, another whatever.  Dreams can take us away from the every day drudgery that becomes so common place that it bores us to tears.  And then dreams can fall apart and disappoint us.  Sometimes they become so real to us that their inability to come to fruition is sensed as failure.