Come ride on trains with me, and
we’ll go somewhere new. Sit across from me, and let’s look out the window at
all the new landscapes rushing by as the sun casts a glow on our cheeks. Where
are we going? To a city where we can amble along the river and take pictures of
statues we don’t recognize. To a rustic village with thatched roofs and honeysuckle,
where the air smells of apples and the fresh earth. We can sit in meadows by
long-forgotten streams and watch the wispy clouds pass, their changing shapes
keeping time with our hearts. The wind rustles the grass and tickles our skin
and this is bliss, this is contentment, and I just want to explore with you.
So come sit on planes with me.
Watch the hues of greens and blues and whites come into focus and become lakes,
fields, and houses. Feel the change in the air as we exit the sliding glass
doors and step into a new world. A bus will take us into the city, and we’ll
watch as rolling hills change into streets and avenues and promenades. The
night — foreign and new — is waiting for us. In the early hours of the morning
when we've finally had our fill of music, wine, and conversation with strangers
we’ll come back to the sleeping hostel past curfew and pour ourselves into tiny
beds and fresh sheets. I just want to explore with you.
So come climb into the passenger
seat with me, and let’s take off. We can have the wind in our hair and nothing
but the highway in front of us. We’ll go on until we’re standing at the beach in
our jackets and watching the birds dipping and diving, with the smell of the
ocean in front of us. We’re outlaws, pioneers, lovers, companions, triers of
new things, witnesses of god or whatever it is we think we see out there. We have
open eyes, salt in our hair, and we won’t talk, we won’t touch, we’ll just be
there, and we’ll be in love, not with each other, but with the unknown, with
the things we can’t see and don’t understand. I just want to explore with you.
Come do this with me because I
want to explore with you. I want to see new things with you, to wander
alongside you with our eyes as wide as children’s and our hearts just as free.
I want to walk next to you down roads we've never walked on before and hear
words we've never heard spoken before. We will touch things, taste things, and
it will all be new. You’ll be new, and so will I. It doesn't matter that I
don’t know you, that I've never met you before, but I saw you today on the
street — just for a moment, just before you turned the corner — and I want to
explore with you.
[Image: Paul Hill Photography]
[Image: Paul Hill Photography]
