Today, as I travel unhurriedly through the neighborhoods of my youth, there's no need to race.

The sweet little car named Jacquie has a mind of her own as she noses into Carol Cole's circular driveway. Carol is a schoolmate I've not seen in over fifty years, although I have no trouble finding her grey brick house with rust colored shutters and white trim around the windows. Jacquie applies the brakes dead center of Carol's front door and I crane my neck hoping for a glimpse of my yesterday friend. When no one appears, Jacquie sighs, revs the motor and takes off.

I should go on home, I think to myself, and cook supper. Babe will be hungry when he gets in from the golf course.

And without even a turn signal, Jacquie swerves to the right and onto Broughton, a street as familiar to me as my own face. We mosey along in no particular hurry, but with a clear destination in mind: home. To my left is the Albergotti house; across the street on the right is where the Scoville's live.

Jacquie ambles up Broughton while I look everywhere for my own house.

"There it is on the left. That's my house." I breathe easier as relief fuses my mind and body. We approach the house and this time Jacquie signals before turning into the driveway. At the last moment I see that it is not my house after all. It's where the Rosson's live.

"Keep on trucking, Jacquie, but turn right on Carolina Avenue," I shout.

We coast downhill while I look from one side window and then the next, trying to see where I live. Instead of home, I find myself in a construction area where houses are being built, roads reconstructed. The entire area is strange to me.

I am lost, lost inside the streets of my past and I feel all alone and terribly frightened. Even Jacquie is gone. I set out on foot toward some construction workers who are repairing a dilapidated house.

"Hello? I'm sorry to bother you, but I think I'm lost."

I have approached the man who looks to me like he's in charge who smiles and tips his hard hat away from his face. He looks like the Marlboro Man. Great eyes. Good teeth. Strong jaw line.

"You need directions to some place? Where are you going?" "Home," I say. "I'm going home."

He raises his eyebrows. "And that would be where?"

At that moment, I realize I don't know where home is. I thought I did, but when I picture the house in my mind's eye, the image changes to one I lived in at some other time in my life.

I tell the man, "it's the house with swings in the side yard and two little boys out there chasing each other. A Collie is barking at them both. It has green shutters..."

The man shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. "Sorry, lady. I can't help you. Maybe you should call somebody. There's a phone inside you're welcome to use."

I am numb as I climb the steps of the strange house and walk onto a porch with the screen door ajar. Inside, I make my way down a long hall, which is crowded with large pieces of furniture that looks vaguely familiar. I think maybe it all once belonged to me. There's that lightly stained chest we bought at auction and Babe refinished. A heavier piece is shoved behind it, its drawers askew. I rub my hand over the top surface of the chest.

I take a look around and become aware of three closed doors leading to three separate rooms. Stepping around the large pieces of furniture (that had once been mine), I make my way over to the last door, the one at the far end of the hall. My hand closes around the knob, it turns, and the door opens.

I gasp.

There is one single bed in the room over which someone has spread a worn pink coverlet. There is one pillow, but no headboard. Two undressed windows look back at me as though embarrassed for not wearing curtains. The walls might have been white at one time or another but no pictures hang on it now, only old nails where pictures used to live.

As I look at the naked walls, a profound sadness that washes over me in a rush, bringing on a storm of tears.

I stand in the doorway and gaze into a room that my mind tells me was once occupied by a child, although no child has been inside it for some time. I don't know how I know this, but I do. It is a make-do bedroom devoid of personality.

There are no flowers, mirrors or books, no chipped figurines or drooping candles. The old nails still stuck in the faded walls are the only reminder of what used to be. It is the saddest room I've ever seen, and I weep for the solitude I sense inside of it.

I know now who once lived in that room, who hung family pictures on the walls, who kept a child's creative gifts and mementos on the now bare table next to the bed.

It was I.

The room used to be mine.

*****

Briefly, I had tasted the abrupt disconnect from everything that had once been as familiar to me as my own voice. Lost in strangeness, I felt utterly alone and vulnerable. I so wanted to go home, but I had no idea how to make it happen.

A veil of sadness overwhelmed me upon awakening, and it clings to me even now.

I wipe away tears because I am frightened for my friend who was told that she is Mr. Alzheimer's newest conquest. I am saddened to think that she will lose all of her precious memories. It hurts me to imagine a time when she no longer recognizes her own children or recalls any of the 17,520 days spent loving her husband. It breaks my heart to know that in time she will become a stranger even to herself.

My tears are for my friend as I remember the hauntingly real dream. Or was it a dream? Have I backed through time into my own future?