Thoughts from the train ride
"sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all of the lives I'm not living." -Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The songs I chose to travel by didn't mean much, beyond my liking them, until I got on the train. Then they became a soundtrack to the world slipping by, whether they fit or not. The factories spouting pollution. The teenage punks raising their devil-horned hands to the train. Row houses, worn and old and too-close. New houses, lonely on a bare piece of land. Lush trees, because everything is this green this spring. A grouping of chairs and tables on a lawn, waiting to be filled. Someone old and sick in a bed by the window, back turned to a world she can't be a part of anymore. More train tracks stretching out and crossing those on which I travel. Power lines and phone lines, carrying light and voice. A stretch of flowers in the middle of nowhere. Horses grazing in a field that's far too small and more mud than green. Cars waiting as the train crosses the road, are they impatient to be on their way? Or do they wonder about the stories of those riding the train?
And just what is my story, anyway?
The songs I chose to travel by didn't mean much, beyond my liking them, until I got on the train. Then they became a soundtrack to the world slipping by, whether they fit or not. The factories spouting pollution. The teenage punks raising their devil-horned hands to the train. Row houses, worn and old and too-close. New houses, lonely on a bare piece of land. Lush trees, because everything is this green this spring. A grouping of chairs and tables on a lawn, waiting to be filled. Someone old and sick in a bed by the window, back turned to a world she can't be a part of anymore. More train tracks stretching out and crossing those on which I travel. Power lines and phone lines, carrying light and voice. A stretch of flowers in the middle of nowhere. Horses grazing in a field that's far too small and more mud than green. Cars waiting as the train crosses the road, are they impatient to be on their way? Or do they wonder about the stories of those riding the train?
And just what is my story, anyway?