thoughts on the train there

a moment of non-beauty: i arrived home from work at 10:40 last night. fell asleep around 11:30. woke up at 2:30, arose from bed twenty minutes later, and left my house at around 3:10. i arrived to pick up my director and his wife, who live forty-five minutes away from where i live, in about a half-hour. we made it to the station in plenty of time. a conversation was noted and filed in my mind, and the subject had presented his side to me before it was even brought up this morning: it has been in a constant mode of discussion between morals and intuition and common sense and sensibility the past twenty-four-plus hours. my hair is sticking out to one side, my dark circles are more prominent than ever, and my face feels strange, as if it itself were groggy. it dislikes ungodly hours of the morning about as much as i do...

5:38 am
i have never been up early enough to see the sun rise. even though it wasn't grandiose, with every color of the warm-toned side of the spectrum, it was still beautiful. i should get up earlier more.

7:55 am
the sun lights everything under its giant beam of light, and has a midas touch: rather than just turning things into gold, everything seems to come to life.

the view out my window offers me mountains and valleys, each with forests spanning every seemingly possible inch. there are places where groves of trees stand so close together that the sunlight flickers through the spaces to the tempo of a steady cello accompaniment. and when there is space enough in between the trees to feast my gaze on the rolling hills that make up the valleys, and the snow-capped peaks surrounding them, oh, my gaze is bursting! and i look up at the sharp points of the mountains, each covered with blindingly white snow illuminated more so by the sun, i feel like i should be skipping along the tops of the ridges to the syncopated rhythms of a violin tapping out a melody. i see turquoise waters, made tumultuous and white by rocks and gravity, rushing their way below the tracks, as powerful and yet graceful as the viola's painted solo. (oh, and beauty, Lord--this is only the journey there...)

8:57 am
we are near the sea, or at least a small part of it. i keep expecting to see the opposite shore at a closer distance, but it's almost a blur. the clouds ahead of us are muggy and prevent me from seeing our destination, although that could be because it's around the point.

old railroad tracks, old beach-sided houses with sturdy foundations and peeling paint, old rocks and graveled shores with barnacles. old ships, old piers, hollow bodies that have a permanent date with wading in the water, old trees, old waves since the waters first came into being. this place speaks of age, and of perpetuality: what else are waves if not measurements of time that the ocean has lost count of?

9:37 am
train cars roll past, and there are marinas and docked cruise ships aplenty. the older gentleman sitting in the seat in front of me has already befriended r, and now josh is making conversation, listening as the old man tells him "we drank wine." we are closer to the city.

this song, and these views, afford me a sensory overload i would not have thought possible in between cities and towns, and that's only sans taste, smell, and touch.

the taste of my orange juice is sweet, and keeps me awake and alert. the smell of grapes still lingers on my skin, and the sterile air inside the train car reminds me of airplanes, and how their cleanliness abounds.

i feel as if, with hallelujah and a sunrise, with mountains and the ocean, the real--world--rushing by--it would have been your idea, were it possible, to somehow make this train stop, and to indeed make it possible to skip along the rigid backs of mountains.

be stlll, psyche. i haven't thought about you in the longest time.
i do still hope that you're up there, and that i'll be there to see you when my time comes.

-d