Happy Valentine's Day

The thing about me is that occasionally (read: all the time) I am overcome by an urge to find out where a road leads. Clearly, all roads must lead somewhere, otherwise they would not - indeed, could not - be built.

The thing about roads is that they are theoretically infinitely long. One road is finite, of course, but roads as a general entity are infinite, since you could, theoretically, walk on them forever.

These two things make for a lethal (read: positively enthralling) combination.

Wherever you are, there is a universe of things happening elsewhere. Whatever you are engaged in at the moment, elsewhere there are millions of other people engaged in millions of other things. Elsewhere, whole lives churn on, while yours trickles forward in the detailed minutiae of living it close-up and personal. Elsewhere, people live their lives, while here, you live yours.

So.

Elsewhere, two lovers gaze over the fuzzy golden glow of dinner candles, candlelight and new love dancing in their glassy eyes, fingers delicately intertwined over the hors d'ouevres and champagne.

Elsewhere, a comfortably married couple bickers over babysitters.

Elsewhere, two impossibly mismatched high-school friends end up spending Valentine's Day perched on the roof of his broken-down car, with the suburbs at their feet and love growing in their light-hearted laughter.

But here, I'm dangling off the wooden pier, watching a swan mischievously pursue a frenzied duck across the lake in a disgruntled explosion of feathers and foamy water, the glinting reflections dissolving into deep watery black.

Elsewhere, an elderly couple wanes into two close shadows in the twilight, hands rough like sandpaper, hearts ponderous with centennial love.

Here, I'm spinning madly on a boundless shadowy plain, face craned upwards to the domed explosion of midnight pink-purple above, my tear-blurred vision crammed from periphery to periphery with an immense Sky that's ringed ever so thinly at the horizons with the dark black of the land.

Elsewhere, two lovers make up after a fight, because it's Valentine's Day.

Here, I'm wandering through a neighbourhood so cosmetic, so domestic, that I have to hug myself to make sure I'm still real, as I wander up the pristine paved roads that weave in and out of houses, thinking "Someone lives here. This is someone's life. This is where they've put their roots. Someone lives here." I also have no idea where I am, and everything is so peaceful it hurts.

Elsewhere, a man marries the love of his life and proceeds to live out his dream of "His and His" monogrammed towels, happily ever after.

Here, I'm sitting on a slightly damp wooden bench, distressing the too-calm surface of the pond in front of me with small idyllic rocks, slowly drifting down from my high of adventure and rapture. The world is so unbearably beautiful that my blurry, teared eyes prevent me from seeing it properly. I'm thinking, the road led me here. This is somewhere.

But elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere. Elsewhere, people are plural, people live the "we", "us" and "they". Elsewhere, people are together.

Somewhere, here, I'm alone, lonely.

But, (read: contented, and happy).