Somewhere I Belong

Somewhere I belong

She walked out of the noisy bar and into the crisp night. The streets were busy with people who had taken advantage of the first warm day of spring. They were now slowly making their way back home, prolonging the pleasure by refusing to acknowledge that the night had already begun to turn chilly. The city’s restaurant and bar terraces had been filled to the bursting all afternoon and the night wanderers were delaying their return home as long as their naked arms could stand the prickling of the cool wind.

She and her friends had been doing just the same, enjoying the hidden terrace of a crowded bar and the warm golden glow of strings of lights hanging over little wooden tables. The old-fashioned bulbs dangled loosely from wires in delicate, golden cages, making the place feel cozy yet magical. Her friends had chosen the trendy place, as always. The owners prided themselves on the handcrafted wooden benches that seated nearly fifty people on their busiest nights. The high brick walls enclosing the terrace were covered in lush green vines, a pleasant oasis hidden within the busy, concrete-covered city. Extremely trendy.

The breeze rushed her as soon as she was out the door. The brick walls she’d stared at for most of the afternoon must’ve retained much of the day’s heat, keeping the drinkers blissfully ignorant of the temperature dropping. Goosebumps ran up her arms, pinched her neck and covered her skull beneath her long brown hair. She shrugged on her jean jacket, thankful she’d thought to grab it before leaving her apartment in the afternoon.

She moved away from the bar at a brisk pace leaving music, laughter and innocent joy behind along with her unknowing friends. Her steps were quick and decisive. She almost always walked that way; she’d noticed people were less likely to approach her when she seemed to be in a hurry.

She came upon an inebriated couple a couple of blocks down the road. They were swaying while leaning awkwardly against each other with every clumsy step they took in her direction. The handsome, scruffy dark-haired man was holding as much as he was holding up a beautiful red-haired woman. Her arms hung around his neck as she lustily pressed her bosom against his body, giggling loudly. They were extravagant, arrogant. She thought they looked as though they needed to prove to the rest of the world – but more immediately prove to her – that theirs was, in fact, the greatest intimacy anyone had ever known. She, of course, wouldn’t have known it if it were, having nothing to compare it to.

She’d had lovers, same as anyone, but she had never known that kind of intimacy. She had experienced physical passion with men and even, to her surprise at the time, with a woman. But she had never felt real romantic affinity with anyone. No matter how much her partners had pushed to know her more deeply, she’d always pushed back, feeling that in truth, they could never really understand. It wasn’t so much a matter of trust, rather than the fact that she’d never had anything to share that could help know her better. Some had begged and fought for a chance to peer into her soul, but whenever she’d stared back into their eyes, she’d always felt like she might as well have spoken a foreign language. She didn’t know how to let someone in. Not when they felt so far away to begin with.

The eyes are the window to the soul, they say. That was plain enough. But her windows felt shuttered, boarded up. She could see their souls were never of the same kind, like she was from a different world, two pieces of a different puzzle, a key into the wrong lock.

As the couple bumped and swerved towards her, she avoided them by stepping off the sidewalk and moving onto the road. They clearly hadn’t the presence of mind to do so themselves. Moving passed them she felt a magnetic field of opposing force pushing her away. Not only from the inconsequential strangers on her path, but from their reality. Their world was something magnificent, and holy, and exclusive that she could never be permitted to know. She crossed the lamplit avenue and turned into an alley, towards a quieter street she knew well and loved to wander through.

She relaxed and slowed her step as soon as she reached the intersection. There was no one to be seen and that was simply perfect; she longed to be alone.

A creature of habit, she followed the cracks along the sidewalk, admiring the beautiful homes that lined the street with their dark gray stone walls and colourful doors and window frames painted in greens and blues and reds and yellows. She fetched her phone out of her back pocket while her feet guided her down the familiar way. The screen lit up under her touch and she was both relieved yet disappointed with the absence of notifications. Her friends had not noticed she had gone, though it had been almost half an hour since she’d “gone the restroom”. None of them had tried to reach her. Perhaps they’d barely noticed she’d been there at all. It often felt that way: them together enjoying a good time and her on her own trying to figure out what the code to unlock the barrier was. Stung, she turned off her phone, taking away any chance of hearing from them that night.

It had been a perfectly fine afternoon, on a perfectly lovely day. She’d met all her closest friends back in university. Now, a few of them worked with her at the agency, while the others all had similar jobs in different companies. As usual, the conversation flowed between the love lives of those who enjoyed successful relationships, and the wild dating stories of those who couldn’t be tied down. She didn’t usually take part in these discussions because she had neither significant other nor did she go on wild and fiery lustful adventures. She didn’t talk about her occasional short relationships or liaisons. They wouldn’t understand why she couldn’t find anyone she could really be with. When she tired, her friends usually just ended up with a look of perplexed pity filling their uncomprehending eyes. They’d long ago stopped pushing her on the subject: they always came up empty handed and it got awkward for everyone involved.

She had tried once, with her best friend. Really tried. After they’d polished off three bottles of wine, she had tried to explain the universal distance she felt with people. Her friend had been so bewildered that she’d been lost to an uncontrollably long, hurtful laughing fit punctuated by her saying over and over that she either had to be extremely drunk or completely crazy to say such things. If even her very best friend couldn’t understand how out of place she was, it was hopeless for the others.

She had become content in commenting sparingly on the others’ stories, just enough to not seem offended or uninterested, which would lead to more awkward situations.  

This group would also circle back to work more often than not: the tough conditions, the long hours, the crazy clients, the impossible budgets, the angry spouses who didn’t understand… It almost inevitably turned to the craziest projects they’d worked on or were currently slaving over. These conversations were full of fire, passion, debate and jealousy. She’d partake more on this subject; she’d lead some very interesting projects just like the others. She even caught burning envy in their eyes from time to time. She couldn’t envy any of them herself: she struggled to feel the pride she should’ve and that they surely would have felt in her place. She didn’t know what made them jealous.

Truth be told, she had spent most of that afternoon sipping her pink wine and listening to her friends, wondering where all their emotions and passion came from. She’d tried to puzzle out why, though she understood and knew them well enough, she couldn’t relate to any of them. Not really. She’d realized that she hadn’t the faintest idea what drove them. But she knew with absolute certainty that whatever it was, it didn’t move her. They burned gas while she photosynthesized. Sitting on the fancy handcrafted benches with them that afternoon, she’d thought that none of their lives would’ve been any different if she’d been sitting on a different planet entirely.

But hers might be different. In a place where other eyes saw the universe as hers did. Where the magnetic fields surrounding people called to the one surrounding her.

She wasn’t envious of her friends or the lust-filled drunken couple with something to prove. She had never longed for these things that others were so obsessed with. Her longing was for something bigger. Something different. The desire to desire. The desire to find something, or someone, that would introduce her to real desire and passion. The wish to be driven to do things and to be someone. The ecstasy of being moved by a commanding force that she couldn’t ignore.

She walked along the quaint street and peered through the colourfully framed windows. One of them, probably sky blue by daylight but looking almost navy in the darkness, revealed a neat little study. Without her noticing, her feet had stopped before the windowsill and she stood there looking into the empty room. Something about it just drew her in. Maybe it was the feeling of peace, satisfaction and warmth that emanated from the foot lamp in the corner. Or the large wooden bookshelf filled with books, some of them colourful and inviting, others looking old, full of ancient wisdom. She longed to sit in the pale grey armchair next to the shelves and read every single page by the lamplight right then and there. She would’ve stayed up all night reading the entire library if she could, whatever those books were about. They could’ve been dreadfully boring, every last one. But in her heart, she knew that couldn’t be true.

Maybe it was the pale wooden desk facing the window. The only thing disturbing the smooth surface was a slender silver computer. It lay there waiting for her fingers to run along its metallic cover, open it, and start typing. It was there for her to write anything and everything she had ever felt she couldn’t express with her voice. The little white chair behind the desk was inviting, offering her a seat to write all the things that made sense to her, the things she couldn’t find in her life, the things no one knew about. She felt a flurry of desire to write down as clearly as possible all the things that had been missing from everyone else’s eyes, all the things that made her feel she didn’t belong here.

Or maybe it was the two small potted plants resting on the windowsill. One was a about six inches tall and had a dozen large, rough-looking leaves, all spreading from its center. It looked rigid, though it was a soft, dark green colour that quenched a thirst deep inside her. The other was just a seedling, with a tiny bright green stem topped with oversized leaves that were still no bigger than her thumbnail. She could name neither but wanted to nurse both. What a singular feeling it was to find a stranger’s home so appealing.

She nearly leapt out of her skin when a stray cat meowed by her leg. Suddenly aware she’d been standing there for several minutes, she realized that whoever had turned on the light in their office could come in at any moment to find her intruding on their intimacy. She reluctantly turned away from the window, sidestepping to avoid the cat. Her mind ran wild with fantasies of what the inside of every one of those colourful little houses could look like, and soon she was picturing a whole new life for herself in each and every one of them.

The red one with the long white porch and the triangular window on the second floor was where she could have her painter’s studio overlooking the street. She would spread the strangeness of her soul over canvases day after day, discovering her peace.

In the yellow one, she had a room in the back full of computers where she would imagine the most incredible websites and make loads of money as a successful freelancer. Every agency in the city would request her services and other developers would envy her for her skill. There was an idea! She didn’t know the first thing about coding.

In the house with the matching purple door and roof, she would love a man with eyes that knew same strange place her heart did. They would live with their two kids, strange as they were, and be perfectly happy together, ignoring the way everyone thought of them as weird and wrong, and embracing their peculiar views of the world and of beauty. They wouldn’t mind it one bit, as he too would’ve always felt out of place, and they would know and understand each other deeply. That too though, was simply crazy.

She reached the end of the street as she did the end of her strength. She couldn’t peer into one more window to a better life. Her heart was heavy. The thought of her own apartment made her weary. She had absolutely no desire to enter her undecorated, empty home, devoid of plants, books or canvases. Revulsion pulsed through her veins.

She paused at the corner, knowing she should go to the right, towards her own street, but her body wouldn’t obey. She felt so displaced. Her friends back at the bar had been irritating her all day with their useless conversations. The less she’d been able to relate to them, the more she’d felt like flipping over the stupid trendy table and cursing them all. She almost wished she could have seen the looks on their faces if she had done it, but there was also rage burning in the pit of her stomach. Her friends were entirely clueless about her. While no one resembled her, no one had any appreciation for how lucky they were to belong. She couldn’t go home and face the utter emptiness of her life, its lack of meaning. She couldn’t stand to sit in the cage of her loneliness.

She chose adventure, to call it by a more romantic name. Or she chose to delay the moment where she would inevitably lie in bed and stare at the blandness of her ceiling, wondering what she would see if she could watch the sky in bed instead of the blank lid of her boxed life.

There was a park a few blocks to the left. Perhaps tonight she could lie down in the grass and look at the stars in the sky rather than the ones in her mind.

Left she went.

She walked into the park by the gravelly path that wound from one end of the grounds to the other. She left the trail to lean on the nearest tree and removed her shoes, leaving them amongst large tangled roots. She wiggled her toes in the cool, humid spring grass, drunk on the blades tickling her feet.

Her legs relaxed as the cold climbed soothingly up her calves and all the way to her knees.  Her entire body felt light, alive, almost magical. With her eyes shut, she took a deep breath, filled with the subtle smells of the gentle spring night: fresh grass, tree buds, blooming flowers, and even the last remnants of winter smells slowly being pushed away. Somewhere in the distance, the wind was dancing through a windchime, spreading its sweet melody through the soft night. She settled in the soundscape with her eyes closed for a long while.

When she reopened them slowly, her gaze found a welcoming golden light only a short distance ahead, coming over the top of a small hill. She was immediately drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, as though the light pulled a rope tied to the pit of her belly. She wondered if it belonged to people hanging out in the park as she made her way towards the light.

Enjoying every single grassy step, she walked around the mound and came upon a small pond. Water rippled away from a fountain in its center, with the golden gleam dancing like liquid flames on the surface with every undulation. Right by the water’s edge, a string of small golden lights hung from the branches of five trees growing along the shore.

The set up was enchanting and yet no one was there to enjoy it. She realized she hadn’t seen anyone at all in the park. How odd for the first beautiful spring night following a long, cruel winter. But she was glad to have this beauty all to herself.

She felt strangely whole, standing alone under a cluster of illuminated trees in a deserted park in the middle of a bustling city. It was as though it had been waiting specially for her. She could almost feel the warm tingle of the light touching her skin, while a light breeze ran across the pond to blow her hair over her shoulders. She closed her eyes blissfully, taking it all in.

She dropped her purse and laid back in the middle of her strange haven. She let her hair tangle with the grass around her face and stretched her body out. She felt more comfortable here than she had ever felt in her apartment. She was perfectly happy and comfortable in her park bed looking at hundreds of golden lights. She slowly soaked up the comfort and plenty she’d constantly ached for. Warmth spread across her face and plunged into her chest, her heart, her belly. The coolness of the grass below penetrated her clothes as well as her flesh and came to meet the spreading warmth in a tingling tangle that filled her with a strange sort of life. It felt as though her soul was awakening.

She ran her hands over the grass until her fingers met with a slightly stronger stem. She gently grasped the fuzzy stalk between her thumb and finger and turned her head to see the smallest blue flower.

“Forget me not,” she whispered to herself, remembering the flower’s name. How ironic for such a thing to slip into her fingers just when she’d be so perfectly glad to be forgotten.

Her gaze went beyond the flower and over to the glistening water. The sight was so pretty she thought that this was how the universe should be reflected in her eyes. This was the feeling she never caught in others. A lonely tear slipped through her lashes, ran down her cheek and was collected by a blade of grass that gently brought it down to the earth. She watched the lights dancing on the pond in a daze. She was somewhat aware of her own reflection under the fountain, lying below the surface. How odd that she could see herself at such an angle, she thought.

How odd.

She snapped out of her trance and rose to her feet. She ran to the water’s edge, heart pounding: someone was at the bottom of the pond!

She looked around for help but, as she’d been happy to notice only moments ago, the park was completely empty. No one could save the stranger but her. She ran along the shore towards a bend that was closer to the fountain where she’d be able to reach the drowning person faster.

When had this happened? She hadn’t seen anyone going in or falling in. There hadn’t been anyone underwater when she had arrived, she was sure.

She slowed down when she got to the point where the shore was nearest to the fountain and got her first good look at the victim. It was a man who, to her surprise, was neither swimming nor floating lifelessly. Instead, he was lying on his side, his head propped on his left hand and his elbow digging into soft green grass.

He was…reading? That couldn’t be right… She stared at the figure below the surface, trying to make out the shape clearly through the ripples, convinced it had to be some trick of the light. But no. It was really a man with a full head of dark hair, barefoot, wearing a dark long-sleeve t-shirt with jeans, and who looked to be about her age, maybe slightly older.

Now she saw that the lights hadn’t been reflected from her mysterious oasis under the trees, but that there was another cluster of trees at inside the pond, only slightly different from her own. He really was down there reading a book in the grass by the light of a garland that looked just like the one she had found above the surface.

She was stupefied. She was terrified. She was mesmerized.

She was as drawn to the scene below as she’d been by the golden glow of her little haven when she’d first walked into the park, or by the little office through the blue window before that. It was like the most delicate fishing hook had caught her soul and the invisible fisherman was now reeling it in below the surface. Fear melted away in strange exhilaration. She looked around again to make sure no one was around, suddenly hoping she wouldn’t get caught. Hoping her discovery could remain her secret. Without explanation, she knew right then that she could go down there and join the strange man in his underwater park.

And she did.

With dreamlike movements, she stepped off the grass and into the water. She was vaguely aware that it should’ve been ice cold from the last of the winter’s snow melted only days ago, but was unphased by its sweet warmth. She waded further into the pond and down the underwater hill towards the submerged trees, her clothes feeling as dry as they had been on shore. She walked slowly, confidently down the soft slope. She barely noticed when her head passed below the water’s surface. Her feet were back in the grass and a familiar soft breeze stirred her hair around her shoulders. Above her head, she could see the night sky, specked with more stars than she could ever recall seeing in her life. Where the water had been swayed a milky white wave that reminded her of an aurora. A different park spread around her, not unfamiliar, but strange all the same.

The man below the trees, who hadn’t yet lifted his nose from his book, finally took notice of her. He closed the pages delicately and sat up slowly, looking at her in amazement and what she thought to be gladness in dark hazel eyes. She couldn’t speak. She walked over and kneeled next to him. She explored the fine traits of his face, until she was gazing into his eyes.

She released a sigh of relief she had unknowingly been holding in. She had been hanging onto it her entire life, and was only now free of it.

She was home.