on rails

Shined by the weight of
Endless hurries and dreams, reach
For infinity.

I never realized how terribly poetic train tracks are. On the train ride to Wien, I paused for some time at sunset, distracted by the view out the back window. As we raced away from Nowhere, heading for the next bend in the tracks, the rails stretched out, rust worn away by the friction of endless passings by endless passengers: the English teacher going to visit his school friends for the weekend, the old woman on her way to see her even older mother in the hospital, the businessman rushing to finish a presntation before he arrives, the university students en route to whatever it is that awaits them nowhere in particular.

It's easier to appreciate a trip when there aren't responsibilities. Straight through from Frankfurt to Wien on a EuroNight train, no changes to worry about, no highways, insurance or directions, nothing to do but appreciate scenery and conversation, and, once the world inside and outside goes to sleep, to appreciate sparser and sparser dots of light on dark hills and the peaceful silence of one's own thoughts.

Learning to travel is a process that forks and forks, but I don't think that it ever terminates. It runs in the background on every trip, taking input from any experience that arises. It is certainly recognizable, though, as it chugs along: I can see the fresh look on Teetee's face when Mathieu and I speculate on whether our not our hostel will have bedsheets. "I am never telling my mother this," she affirms.

As I packed my bread into my backpack this afternoon, I wondered where I could have been today. But I realized that it doesn't matter. I found CS and am cultivating an admittedly still-nascent sense of adventure. I'm helping wear the rust off the tracks.