On the Train...

The Train

When you're encased in a few rolling metal boxes, there isn't much choice but to sit back and enjoy the ride. At least from my perspective. All the food I need for 4 nights, all my belongings stuffed into a backpack and my bicycle safe in the luggage car. Everything that I need. It's amazing how little we really need. I only really want what I need and I appreciate the extras. But when food is scarce and I force myself to shovel down some 3 day old cooked potatoes, greasing them up with mayonnaise so they slip down my throat easier, I feel alive. I have become adept on living below the "poverty line". Whatever that means. All I know is that I don't pay taxes. I definitely lead a pretty good life despite it. I have to admit I do get some money from family which allows me to feel generous and take my friends out for dinner and also allows a certain amount of security that people below the "poverty line" don't all have. 

The days are passed in the observation car, the nicotine-addicted awaiting the next stop so they can get their fix. You can feel each stop drawing closer as the fiends' energy builds anticipating the relief of nicotine. Ahhhh….  Makes me glad I don't smoke because that feeling of relief is not worth all the anxiety that is created in the first place, vicious cycle. I portion out my reading because I only have one book which I am really enjoying, so I'm savouring it slowly. There is no reason to rush, no possibility to be in a hurry. Where are you going to go? Every evening I get up and rock out at some point to release some stagnant energy of sitting around so much. Especially in the morning when you "wake up" having rested your eyes in positions that you didn't even know you could get into, everything cracking (mostly) back into place. But it'll take days for my body to really return to a comfortable state of being. A few deep sessions of yoga. 

It's a psychological process to cross the country by land, to be able to observe every foot as you pass it, to briefly pass through cities that you've heard of all your life but have never been to. To meet people with all different stories and watch them come together and split apart as the train stops and spits them out, only to swallow new friends and companions for brief conversations, moments of eye contact, and maybe even some jam sessions. The energy building and waning, perspectives mixing and matching and clashing and banging around the metal boxes. Laughter echoing into the moments past, tears shed quietly in a corner seat, and stolen kisses in the middle of the night under a stained sleeping bag. 

It's real. This is life crunched into a metal box and hidden under the bed. People, places, experiences happing NOW. It's all happening and we got nothing but time to be a part of it all.