Across the Universe

This is just a dream.Probably an impossible one,certainly an improbable one,but then again,all dreams are.If...if you just had that someone special who was the stuff that fairytale romances are made of by your side and you could choose to take off without a care in the world,where would you go?Across the universe?

'You're packing a suitcase for a place,
None of us has been.
A place that has to be believed,
To be seen.'

Across an entire continent to Europe and on a boat down the breathtaking Rhine valley past the towns and villages of Worms,Koblenz,Cologne and a thousand others where medieval castles perch high on every crag and silently overlook the mighty river's winding turns and keep the secrets they have collected from millions of men over hundreds of years.Into the land that fascinated and inspired the poems of Byron and Goethe and Heine and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson that were your bedtime stories all those years ago.Into the homeland of Cinderella,Hansel and Gretel,Snow White with all their other magical characters to keep you company.

The air is cool, night is sinking,
And quietly is flowing the Rhine,
The tops of the mountains are blinking,
In purple-red sun-setting shine.

You do not have to look 'high up in the light for a maiden so beautiful with jewels glistening bright.' Your very own Lorelei is right there beside you in the boat that carries you through this Neverneverland.And as you take her hand,you realise that this is perhaps the most beautiful aspect of your trip...

To the city of lovers,where you sit at the cafes on the sidewalk and sip coffee and eat croissants in the sun and watch Parisian life flow by idly.Marvel at the innumerable masterpieces housed within the architectural wonder of the Louvre,walk hand in hand down the Champs Elysees to look out over the city from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.Climb the Eiffel Tower to its very top at night and survey the millions of lights that stretch away in every direction as far as the eye can see and you know that whatever ups and downs the future holds in store,'you'll always have Paris.'And maybe,when it is just the two of you on top of the most beautiful city in the world,you can turn to look into her eyes and sneak a special little kiss...

To a small area in northwest England dotted by fourteen sparkling lakes and dozens of fells and valleys.Feel the wind blow across the cold waters into your face and play with your hair as you gaze out from the shores of Lake Windermere.Or take a walk to the peak of Scafell Pike and 'wander lonely as a cloud' to gaze down upon 'a host of golden daffodils' upon the shores of Ullswater.And in the years to come 'when on your couch you lie,in vacant or in pensive mood',your 'inward eye' will return to the hauntingly beautiful scene and know that you were all the more lucky because you could share that moment with somebody...

Across an ocean and half a continent more to the the mountains of Colorado and Nebraska and Wyoming and Montana-names unlikely to be found on a typical US tour itinerary.Up the mountain trails past lakes that glimmer so blue that you feel you are looking at 'two skies,one on top of the other' and there is no possible line that can tell you 'where the heavens stop and the earth begins.'Climb the snowy slopes in the warm sun and the crisp cold air till the weather suddenly turns bad and you are forced to shelter in an empty hut built specifically for stranded climbers with tins of cocoa,a stove and candles.And as you sip your hot cocoa and eat your sandwiches with your shadows assuming strange contours on the walls and the snowstorm howling outside,you realise the true meaning and worth of a candlelight dinner...

Down south to another continent.On the waters of Lake Titicaca to the majestic peaks beyond.And so on to the Inca Trail that leads you through Amazonian rainforest to Andean mountain paths more than twelve thousand feet above sea level to finally end at the Sun Gate of Machu Pichu-the Lost City of the Incas.A city completely made up of huge blocks of granite fit together perfectly without using any mortar.Yet there are no granite quaries till all the way down to sea-level.How did the Incas move those heavy blocks of stone thousands of feet up the mountainside without the benefit of modern technology?Nobody knows the answer.It is one of civilisation's enduring enigmas,a mystery lent even more glamour by its setting.A fitting place to give voice to man's most enigmatic and least understood emotion.And so you turn hesitantly to ask those golden words laden with hope,yet tinged with apprehension in no slight degree,"Will you marry me?"

'And love,
It's not the easy thing,
The only baggage
That you can bring,
Not the easy thing,
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind.'

Foolish?Yes.Romantic?Infinitely.But as you ask the question,you perhaps know that the cosmos which conspired to bring you together and kept you together as you travelled across so much of it will not let you down now.Thus there can only be one answer to the question you have just asked...

U2 was right.It is difficult,if not impossible to let go of certain things.So most people choose never to leave.But the luckiest are those who can take along 'all that you can't leave behind.'And with you,I know that I am one of those so blessed thus.Blessed to 'walk on,walk on...'