City of love

In a distant place, I see a couple walking hand in hand slowly down a small street. At first, it seems they are in no hurry, but as I get closer, I see that the man and the woman have to be over 80 years old. They walk slowly because their age and frailty don't allow them to move faster, because they know that speed is no longer an issue in their life. The relation between these two has existed for decades, a love that has not worn out and has stood the test of time. So it seems to outsiders.

The city where they live is big and famous. It is a metropolis with all its advantages and disadvantages. I don't know if at any point in their lives they consciously chose this place. Even if the couple looks to me like they are from another time, there could be no better place for their relation and affection than this symbolic city.

At a nearby place on the way to work in the morning, I see another picture in front of me. It is not a couple or a feeling of inclination. As if by an unexplainable accident, I see another symbol of this distant city: a taped window, the renovation of an apartment, a condition that needs to be renewed as it has changed over the years. What happened behind this wall and this window? What started here and what ended? Is an old love renewed here or maybe just a past replaced by a new one? Or did this place ever see one?

I now have doubts as to whether I really saw and experienced this moment, this couple, or whether I succumbed to an illusion of the many images and symbols that we encounter throughout our lives without having to go to a specific place. And I wonder how this couple, their love, the symbols of the city and my way to work could come together so suddenly? And what importance I attach to their story, which I don't know in detail, and to my association in everyday life. That is the ordinary and at the same time very special experience with pictures and thoughts: an open door to a limitless world, no matter where.