valentines

In a city that offers anything and everything, I want nothing.
You want food? What kind? You want sex? It's everywhere...check Cowboy's or, on a more limited budget, the dark doorways along 10th Avenue or 3rd Street. You want a relationship? Singles book club meets first Tuesday of the month at the Starbucks nearest you. You want love? Well...I'm not really sure where to recommend looking for that.
I'm thinking of home as I walk down 10th Avenue at 4pm. I'm thinking about the path in the forest that was carved by my great grandparents, my grandparents, parents, and now me. I am thinking that there is evidence of my having been there and of my connection to that land. I belong to that land.
My feet leave no prints in this city of concrete and steel. I have been here a hundred times, I'm sure, and yet there is no proof of that. I mean nothing to this place.
I sat in a car on the side of the avenue and had a conversation with an unlikely candidate. He said unkind words about me and I heard about it and now every time I see him, my guard goes up and I expect that I am going to lash out, say something regrettable. I'll never understand why he said those things about me to other people. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there that don't like me for very good reason...I'm far from perfect. There are, sadly, more out there that wouldn't like me if they found out what I have done to them or said about them in the past. I can deal with the ones that have good reasons.
It is the people that don't have a good enough reason to dislike me that I can't deal with.
This time, something was different when I saw him, although I'm not sure what. Maybe it was just me. I didn't care about the things he had said or not said about me in the past. It hasn't always been this way, but I don't think I could hold a grudge now if my life depended on it. And so, we sat in his borrowed car and had a charming conversation about very real and important things, which was to be immediately juxtaposed with a conversation with another man that strives more for money and power and other people's envy than for anything real and good.
I was equally kind with both men.
I can't leave my footprints in the ground here, but maybe I can leave them in hearts.
Thank God for love.