buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks

Yes, Virginia, The Field of Dreams DOES exist!

A field of dreams?

No, THE Field of Dreams, as in the baseball diamond created from the rough earth of two farmlands for the movie.

Um, i think you're mistaken there. The movie just had ONE farm involved.

Well, that's the magic of film! In reality, two farming families in Iowa allowed the film crews to create the huge baseball field on adjacent portions of their land, then they had corn planted all around. Pretty nice work!

Really cool! And so it's existed all these years?

Well, not quite. After the filming wrapped, one of the families plowed under the portion of the baseball field on their land and replanted crops. But a strange thing happened. That first summer after the movie came out, people came to visit the Field of Dreams portrayed in the film. Not just baseball fans, but FAMILIES came, to play a game of catch on the diamond immortalized in the movie.
The family that had plowed under the portion of the diamond on their land rebuit the baseball field and corrected their mistake.
And more families came to play catch and dream of parents gone and children grown. To dream of baseball greats in the past and present. To dream.
There in the midst of midwestern corn, in the heart of America.

Okay, so what does this mean to me? What's the deal?

I want to go there.

To Iowa??? Seriously??? You don't know ANYONE there.

I know. That doesn't matter. When Mudville was talking about it last night, i very nearly cried. It has been such a reprehensibly hard week for me and i had, quite literally, thrown myself out of my house and forced myself to go be with people who knew me.

Good. Get yourself out of your head for a while.

That was my aim. So, off to downtown i went for the every other Thursday evening meeting. And i deliberately sat next to a woman whose thoughts i value, a woman who i knew would be supportive of me and the part of my hard week i shared with her. And another educator sat on my other side and, between the two of them, i started feeling much better and nearly whole again.

(Nods head.) Good, good, very good to be around positive folk in difficult times.

The important thing is this: they listened. That's the long and the short of it. They listened and allowed me to get the hurt and anger and sorrow out of my head and my heart and my lungs. Sometimes, that, coupled with warm hugs, is what is needed to start forging a path out of the sadness of the world.
So there i was, talking to these two fine ladies. The rest of the group has begun bidding adieu, taking their leave, dwindling our ranks.
Mudville comes over to regale me with the news of his upcoming holiday. He knows i share his love of baseball and he wants to tell me of his upcoming exploits. He's going off for nearly two weeks, to visit his sisters, to see games in Cincinati and Chicago, to visit The Field of Dreams.
The what?
Oh, yes, indeed, in Iowa, near Dubuque. The Field of Dreams.
And i got all choked up and made him him tell me all about it. How it's the silver anniversary of the release of the movie. How celebrity athletes and movie stars used to go there and play games to raise money for charity. How it is still open for all who care to make the drive to this diamond of baseball heaven.

Oh... baseball heaven. So, there may be an intersection there of interest to you? Is that the logic here?

I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe. I just need to go and i need to go THIS year. I just want to walk the bases and gaze into the corn and sit on the bleachers. Who knows? Maybe i'll even pitch a few balls, see if i can even make it to the plate these days. I need to go there. This year.

Well, then you better start planning how you're going to go there. It's a long drive and your summer will soon be drawing to a close.
Oh, and enjoy the trip. I hope you find what you're looking for there.

Me, too. And... thanks.