Little Crooked House

I want to walk across the earth with you. It doesn't matter where we go, so long as we go places.

There is a little town in Spain, near Alicante. A little town by the sea. It's called Moraira and it's set in the hills, slowly curving its way down until it reaches the shore. I haven't been there for a long time, but I remember that the sky there is a crisp blue when the weather is fine and the houses that wind down the slopes, have gardens with orange trees. I've been there before but I want to go there again with you and see it once more, through your eyes.

Then we can climb the Himalayas, up and up and up, until we're looking down at the feathery clouds, and below them, the rest of the world. There are other mountain ranges to climb too, ones I haven't been to, and I don't want to stop until we've reached the pinnacle of every one.

There are so many cities to explore- old cities that have stood for thousands of years and the new ones, artificial, but brimming with life- spilling over with thousands of people, speaking thousands of languages, all different and yet still the same.

I want to drink beer with you in a London pub and cappuccinos in an Italian cafe. Hot tea, held tentatively in an earthen cup, on the dusty streets of Calcutta.

And I want a boat- either a low, cream coloured yacht or a little wooden dinghy or if we're lucky, a big and sprawling ship with white sails- and I want to sail away with you beyond the horizon, like Ulysses did. Except I don't want us to fall off the edge of the earth, oh no, I want to sail and sail, stopping at busy harbours and crowded ports and bustling sea towns, until we reach a little island where, tucked away among the trees, waits a house that looks like a sugar cube with tomatoes in the garden.

I want to live through wild, raging storms and ravaging suns and freezing winters. I want to feel every nerve of my body tingle with anticipation and excitement and restlessness and when that's done, I want to be at peace, to lie somewhere under a soft sky, and read books and listen to music and talk to you about Things.

Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of roads there are? Some long and straight and broad, others twisting their way into nothingness. Cobbled and grassy, broken and made of sticky red mud that clings. I want to walk down all of them with you, and maybe, here and there, when we don't feel like walking on the road, we can break away a little and see what lies beyond.

Most of all, I don't want any of this to be a dream- I don't want it to be elusive, breaking into a million little pieces as soon as I reach out to touch it, just because I reached out too soon. So I'm going to let it be for now. A dream catcher- they're supposed to catch your dreams and hold them for you until the time comes for them to turn real.