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Listened to the sound of the trains last night. I think maybe this place is so cheap in part because of the traffic noise (which isn't bad, 'cept the fire station is a mile away or so and they have to go past us to get to the freeway, so a car wreck, you know, we hear the sirens) and the trains (which are a block or two away).
And hey, the trains are good - to me. Something about the sound of a train whistle, especially in the night, cries freedom and power...I don't want to follow them so much as I want to bask in their presence, their strength. I don't know why something confined to always travelling the same straight lines should speak of freedom - maybe only because it's going to places I'm not, at that moment. Maybe just because that's what I was taught it should mean.
I remember, in college, standing on the wooden foot-bridge over the tracks late at night, talking with friends and waiting for the trains. And the train would come, and thunder by underneath, and the hot wind of its passage would warm the fall air, lift my hair and draw it out, and for a moment I would dream of having wings, of flying above the train, carried by that powerful surging of air....
And then, the train would be gone, and if it was fall or winter (as it often was, because I am stupid), I would be freezing my butt off, and we would all make a fairly hasty departure back to the dorms. But hey, for a few moments it was magic.
One of the guys we knew killed himself under a train - he left notes that made it clear this was deliberate - my junior year? my senior? I have to confess, I can't recall which, now. I think it was senior, not sure. For the rest of my stay at college, the trains still drew me, but I couldn't quite face them. I was afraid I'd imagine it, or remember what he did. I knew I wouldn't be tempted to copy (some people seemed to worry about that), I just wasn't sure I could face it, thought I'd be thinking about his death.
[Edited in 2007 to note: I also was afraid to go down there alone because there are dogs, I'm phobic of dogs, and no one else wanted to go after that.]
But I don't. What he did was to end his life; and that's not what trains are or ever were to me.
So I lie in bed at night in my apartment, and if I've been up late, I listen to the evening freight train make its way through town, and I dream of magic, and I dream of wings. No, I don't mind living so close to the tracks. I like the sound of the trains, singing me to sleep.
And hey, the trains are good - to me. Something about the sound of a train whistle, especially in the night, cries freedom and power...I don't want to follow them so much as I want to bask in their presence, their strength. I don't know why something confined to always travelling the same straight lines should speak of freedom - maybe only because it's going to places I'm not, at that moment. Maybe just because that's what I was taught it should mean.
I remember, in college, standing on the wooden foot-bridge over the tracks late at night, talking with friends and waiting for the trains. And the train would come, and thunder by underneath, and the hot wind of its passage would warm the fall air, lift my hair and draw it out, and for a moment I would dream of having wings, of flying above the train, carried by that powerful surging of air....
And then, the train would be gone, and if it was fall or winter (as it often was, because I am stupid), I would be freezing my butt off, and we would all make a fairly hasty departure back to the dorms. But hey, for a few moments it was magic.
One of the guys we knew killed himself under a train - he left notes that made it clear this was deliberate - my junior year? my senior? I have to confess, I can't recall which, now. I think it was senior, not sure. For the rest of my stay at college, the trains still drew me, but I couldn't quite face them. I was afraid I'd imagine it, or remember what he did. I knew I wouldn't be tempted to copy (some people seemed to worry about that), I just wasn't sure I could face it, thought I'd be thinking about his death.
[Edited in 2007 to note: I also was afraid to go down there alone because there are dogs, I'm phobic of dogs, and no one else wanted to go after that.]
But I don't. What he did was to end his life; and that's not what trains are or ever were to me.
So I lie in bed at night in my apartment, and if I've been up late, I listen to the evening freight train make its way through town, and I dream of magic, and I dream of wings. No, I don't mind living so close to the tracks. I like the sound of the trains, singing me to sleep.
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