MLB Manning

  I dream of houses.   Every night I wander through the gray. My mind racing ahead, penciling in the hallways and rooms as I enter. When I’m awake, my memory is nearly flawless. When I am dreaming, I forget what I have laid down, and the floor plans shift and change like a funhouse. I lose things. I set a box on a table, and when I return, the room no longer exists. Nothing gets done, and we never have coffee. I’m always moving in, but I never live anywhere.  I’m a realtor’s daughter. My childhood daydreams were built around creating my life inside other people’s houses. People I would never meet. Picking out rooms I would never sleep in. Houses I would never live in. A life I would never know. As I fall asleep, I try to choose my houses. I plot a new life like a child sets up a dollhouse. Adding new pieces while desperately trying not to knock down what is already standing. We live in the tiny cottage I rented with my son and his family a few years ago in Seward, Alaska...