There is a place south of the Twin Cities about 30 miles. It’s on a county road between the cities of Farmington and Hampden. It’s largely indistinguishable from most exurban places, branded franchises in strip malls are starting to pop up along with kitchy boutiques all mixed in with the rolling farmland. Forty years ago when I first started driving through here on my way to the golf course in Cannon Falls or the easy metro access on Hi 52 there was far less city. The road curves and weaves close to the Vermillion River, a creek really, which eventually finds its way to the Mississippi only after traversing and meandering along the mostly flat farmland south of the Twin Cities.

The two neighbors Farmington and Hampden have grownup differently. Farmington started to change about thirty five years ago from a sleepy little town with a mainstreet VFW and eateries right along Highway 3 to a more booming suburban town, that seamlessly fits together with its suburban city neighbors like a jigsaw puzzle fit. Even now there is something disconcerting in my soul when I see the changes that have taken place these past decades. The fabric of time is rent in a way that reveals my mortality in this change, so I search for something of substance to hang on to from the old days. The city of Hampden has fared differently. Although located on a more accessible highway it has largely remained unbothered by new structures as the cars are content to just drive-by on the way to the busier locales of Rochester or St. Paul.

The farmland between the two towns is mostly flat, with occasional trees used for wind breaks, or larger glens probably not usable or inconvenient to plow. The Scandinavian and German farmers who settled here were ruthlessly efficient in maximizing this land for output of produce. The roads and the remaining farms are the legacy they left us as a reminder of how farmland was cleared, houses and barns built, and roads used by horses and wagons to transport agriculture products to market. But times have changed and there is probably only a rare old timer that can still tell the story of why that maddening curving route over there was once an oxcart between fields, named after the farmer who originally owned the land.

There is a peculiar geographical feature between the two towns, closer to Hampden. The land rises into a low ridge varying in elevation from 100-300 feet above the farmland. The entire area is not more than 400 acres or so, densely wooded, and unbroken by anything except a power line going right through the middle. I am no geologist, but I have always imagined that not far underneath the soil on that ridge could be found boulders large and small left over as a glacial moraine 10,000 years ago when mammoths and the occasional sabre tooth tigers roamed close-by.

It is in these woods, located on this ridge, that I have lived at least 15 lifetimes. The lifetimes appear to me fully constructed in one second or less. While driving by on the road one day 40 years ago, and at first glance, I immediately construct a life in those woods. Forty years ago, I imagined that I was a wealthy outsider that came in and cobbled together the entire woods through discrete small purchases over a series of several years, using fictitious holding company names in the same way Walt Disney purchased property for DisneyWorld. After purchasing the land I pushed a gravel road to the top of the ridge and cleared about 20 acres, enough area to build a house, a septic field and well, and a few out buildings. The remainder of the property remained untouched and I went to great lengths to maintain privacy, along with significant security. There was a gated entry to the gravel road, with security cameras along the route all the way to the house. The house would have separate security cameras and alert audio for uninvited intruders. The entire property would be ringed by a wireless security system with infra-red cameras to warn of any intruders breaching the grounds. In this first version, I was a rich celebrity, coming to my home in the woods for months of respite and seclusion, before heading back to the land of paparazzi. I even envisioned the layout of the house exterior. Log cabin style, huge with a front porch ringing the entire front of the house wrapping around on the sides.

All subsequent visions occurred only when driving by the property on the road, and they all jumped into my head fully formed. Over the years, after moving away from that area and frequenting the road less often, I was pleasantly surprised by the visions, or memories of the visions . It had been at least 4 years since I last drove by the property and then two weeks ago, I drove by, and had a vision, and was again surprised that it happened. Each vision builds upon the last, more features to the house and property plus the addition of a wife and family. I can conjure it up right now while sitting in my home, at my computer, 1400 miles away.

Early on I added features to the home like a pool in the back of the home, with a large and luxurious with a spa. I also added a detached large log cabin style garage that could hold at least 4 large SUV’s with a grand upper level apartment for guests. The apartment had a large full kitchen, huge bathroom with walk-in shower, full laundry, large living and dining room – the works. For a few lifetimes I added a family with kids scampering across the lawn, and as they got older, exploring the large untouched woods. They learned to hunt, and fished after discovering a trout stream bubbling up from a spring on the property eventually leaving the woods onto an adjacent farmers field. My wife’s laughter and delight reverberated through the house and I have warm feelings just thinking about our lives. The sun shone and scattered rays close by the house in the summer, while the snow and barren trees stood sentry during the the long and cold winters.

Later visions included a separate recording studio and bunkhouse. Famous musicians would fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul and drive 40 minutes to the studio, located 1/2 a mile or so away from the main house, still in the deep woods, but with a stunning vista of the farmland below. Everything in the studio would be state of the art and only the finest and most famous solo artists and bands would be invited to produce albums along with famous producers and mix engineers. Everything from catered to cooked food from the finest chefs, to drugs and alcohol, entertainment and limo service into the big city was provided. Every last detail was organized to provide the absolute best experience in an environment that provided the ultimate privacy for creative freedom. Each artist or band signed an agreement that guaranteed the absolute secrecy of the location.

The story could go on, these lifetimes I live in my backwoods retreat are as real to me as the life I have lived over the last 40 years. I indulge myself with the memories of these lifetimes and am rewarded with instant contentment and satisfaction. The wellspring of imagination is a strange and powerful force. My eye and the way it looks at things becomes the keyhole from which a visionary life emerges. A slight twist of sunlight on a tree, the muted faded sunlight of late September, the way a valley or a ridge rises and falls, interacts with mood and experience and something far more mysterious- something old and very primitive before I was totally human flashes and then fuses all of these elements together in a blinding instant and a story and a lifetime are created whole cloth from the ether.