Through to Sunrise

I can type without looking at the keys, which means that right now, as I type,I'm actually looking out the window. I'm in a forward facing seat on the Commuter Rail to Providence, and the sun is coming up. It's bright. When we hit a treeless piece of track, I turn to face it for as long as I can stand. Maybe it's the time I spent in Seattle, but in the winter it seems like I can feel something good coming into my eyes when I look at the sun.

I didn't sleep much last night,but I feel very awake.
I travel this way pretty often, but it's so rare that I watch the miles go by.

Last night when Z got home from soccer he told me he ran into two cyclists who asked directions to Inman square. Because telling directions on the bike path is pretty tricky (There are few signs, and the path is interrupted a few times by streets)he suggested they take the train. "We rode from Providence!" they said "and by now its a point of pride. We're riding all the way." Z couldn't argue with that, as he recently fit a huge box of DISHES on his bike and pedaled a few miles for the same reason. He gave the travelers simple directions on main streets.

Needless to say we were both impressed. We'd looked at the possibility of that ride before, and it's really long. As I look at all these miles passing by, I'm a little surprised. When I really consider it, I realize that I think of Boston and Providence as separated by time, but not really by distance. I often say "here" in a way that encompasses Boston, Providence, South County with no difference. Sitting on the train, reading, writing, snoozing or hanging out with Z is just part of the penance I have to pay, but I don't consider the miles, just the minutes.

The exception to this is occasionally when I have to explore the stops between my two destinations. Occasionally if there's some rush and someone could meet me in a car, I'll look at the map and figure out where exactly a place like Mansfield or Sharon is. One time, I thought I had cash and jumped aboard the train planning to pay en route. (If I'm honest, I'll tell you, I thought I could pay with a card on the train. If the waitstaff at WagaMama can have handheld credit card machines, why can't the MBTA? Boy did the conductor think I was an idiot for thinking that! Another holdover of my Seattle personality.)

Anyway, she turned me out at the next available stop... Route 128! I felt stranded in an unknown wilderness. I called my pal Mrs. Gray, and asked her to pick me up because it would be hours before I could catch another train and we'd planned to spend the day together. I could give her no directions, so she followed her GPS to get there. I walked, blinking and bewildered out of the station, found a busy enough intersection with a parking lot where I could wait and told her where I was.

I feel a little like that now, seeing the quaint steeples, gritty mills, tract housing, lines of oak trees going by; confronted with the reality of the distance. When we were 19 my friend Julie and I took a train to Oakland, CA from Providence. We met hundreds of people on the way. This morning, looking out the window at the pink sky and the golden light on the trees over the hunched leather jacket of my seatmate, I remembered an agreement we made early on in the trip. We had perhaps stayed up late with a new friend who had taught us to play Euchre in the club car, or maybe had just been awakened by a stop at daybreak, but we sat in our seats and watched the sunrise over... upstate New York perhaps? It was so beautiful, and we were starting to understand what we had in store for the next week. We agreed like 8 year old blood brothers that anytime there was something incredible like a sunset or a sunrise, we each had the permission to awaken the other. Sleep was nothing compared to seeing the entire country out the window of the Amtrack train.

I feel a little like that now in a lot of ways. Now I'll try to get to know the scenery on this train ride the way I know my walk to the library or my bike ride to work. Our return to New England has felt so much like a glimpse into all the meanings a place can hold for us.

Of course, days later, after spending the night chatting with some other young people in the viewing and smoking cars, I returned to my seat during the most beautiful sunrise over Minnesota. I hesitated and then awakened Julie. She peeked out the window and said "Yeah. Thanks Kendra. Maybe we won't do that anymore. I'll see you tomorrow."