Exquisite

As you drive down the hill on 800 South in Orem toward Provo and the river bottoms, about a block and a half before you get to Will’s Pit Stop and the University Ave. intersection, you hit a roundabout. Instead of just blowing straight through like we usually did, we went 270 degrees around into the neighborhood to the north.

In the waking world, I’ve been in that neighborhood before—and it’s lovely! But what I saw yesterday morning was something else entirely.

The light was bright, and kind of a pale pink, like a summer sunset after a rainy day, when everything is still shiny from rain. Only it was winter, still. The road, which was made of cobbles, sloped down and up on multiple planes, and curved gracefully to the right into a kind of cul-de-sac. It followed the contour of the Provo River, which rushed by about ten feet below, iron gray and turbulent. A venetian-type bridge arched across the gulley, connecting the two sides of the street. Expensive houses—the kind you actually find in that neighborhood—stood very close to each other, as if fighting for every last inch of real estate. Houses like palaces, with Currier & Ives-type lampposts in their front yards, and turrets, and sloping gables. New, old-fashioned townhouses lined the west side of the road in crescent formation, filling in the minute gaps between mansions.

We were going somewhere, to someone’s house perhaps. But we never got there because we were too busy marveling…
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I don’t know if it was remembering the scenery from having watched the Merchant of Venice the night before, or the muted morning light glowing through the red, satin curtain of my bedroom window… I often dream about interesting places, but the setting of this particular morningtime dream was exquisite.