I have the craziest dreams ever.

And I have a favorite. About two summers ago I dreamt that I had been given a beautiful, old, leather-bound book that I could not wait to read. It was very mysterious...rough to the touch. It smelled like thousands of people...living rooms, hotel lobbies, train cars, buggies....still mornings and lonely afternoons. I remember I held it with such excitement...the kind you can only have as a kid.

So I sat down on the couch in my dingy, sonotmysteriousinanyway college apartment and I opened it...carefully as I could. I listened to the crackle of its spine and breathed in the must. And on the pages...every word was handwritten. Not like cheesy Thomas Jefferson calligraphy. No...this handwriting was more like the letters Great Aunt Ruby sent from her vacation to Niagra Falls in the 1950s. It was personal...very genuine...and glittered with a sense of whimsy and vintage romance.

After all my feeling, breathing, imagining, mentally and emotionally preparing....I finally flipped to the first page of script and....KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! ...the door. Sigh...I walked over and opened it to find my friend Samantha. She stood there, in all her trendy friend glory, and something in me decided to pull the book out from behind my back and hand it to her.

"Wow!" She took hold of the book with the greatest of care.

"I want you to read this...and bring it back to me when you're done."

So she did...and I soon found her at my door again, with a gigantic smile and younger looking eyes. "What happened?!" I could tell that Samantha had not just read the book...she had experienced it.

"Ok...it was so cool!!" She led me to the couch where we sat down. "There was this part of the book where the character was walking through an enchanted forest. And the whole time she was searching for 'the Step' until she finally found it! It's like this little wooden block that was hidden under a root of some tree. And it glowed!! And when she found it, she set it on the mossy ground, stepped onto it with one foot, leaned forward and BAM!!!"

"BAM what?!?!" I was totally hooked.

Samantha looked me dead in the eye..."I was HER!!!!" She stood up to make better use of the room. "I was walking around barefoot in the forest with a flowy gown! And everything was iridescent colors like green and purple and blue...and there were moonbeams and dragonflies and enormous trees! It was like the Step opened a window into the story...and I ENTERED INTO THE BOOK myself!!! You have GOT to read it."

She slapped the book onto my lap and threw her purse around her shoulder in one quick swoop. "Let me know what happens when you do!"

And out she went. I sat on the sofa hyperventilating.

After several minutes of rationalizing...I lifted my hand to open the book's front cover. No sooner had I touched the leather than...

"KNOCK KNOCK!!"

Bah! I went to the door.

"Hey how's it goin....WOA! What's that?!" It was my friend Shanti. And nothing on God's green earth could peel her hands from that book. So...I let her take it...and told her to bring it back when she was done.

And so she did...and I soon found myself back on the sofa, listening.

"Lindsey..." Shanti lowered her voice to intensify the moment. "This book...KNOWS the heart of it's reader. AND...it can give you the things you want most deeply."

I leaned my head in slowly and widened my eyes. Ooookaaay...

"Like me for instance...I love to read in between the lines." I knew this about Shanti...she loves to be perceptive.

"Like look..." She opened the book to a random page. There was the original Great Aunt Ruby handwriting...until suddenly...it began to FADE! I watched frozen, as a new, unfamiliar, more rigid and uncomfortable handwriting began to appear between the original lines.

"FReaKy!!!!"

"I Knoooow!!!!" She slammed the book shut and put it on my lap. "You have GOT to read it!"

She stood up and out the door she went.... "Bye!"

Hyperventilating. 1...2...3...

...aaaaand..."KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!"

Lauren.

wow cool book.

Thanks, here.

omg. let's discuss it on the sofa.

This time the book was placed in my lap to begin with. "Lindsey, when you're done reading this book...you have to re-write it in your OWN words! Like this, watch."

Lauren opened the book to a new page, took a pen, and began to write over the original handwriting. I watched as the old words began to fade under hers.

"See? Here....You have GOT to read it!" And out the door again.

Knowing that the cycle would continue, I too decided to leave my apartment, and walked out the door. I took the book to a park bench, settled into a comfortable position, opened it to the very first page, and....

woke up. After all that...I never actually got to read the book.

But I did experience something awesome. An unworldly adventure. And excitement that I hadn't felt since childhood.

That's why its my favorite.