I eat some sleep on the train to Boston like it’s the first meal I’ve had all day. I will be there in three hours and forty-seven minutes. With what little I slept last night, that’ll be some six hours rest. Soon (ish), my restless eyes will meet a city I’ve never seen before. My friend and I are on our way to visit her dad and stepmom at their place just outside downtown.
Funny how I almost went to college up here. Part of me hopes I don’t like this trip too much.
I laid my head in my friend’s lap as the birds chased us in their orange heaven. The sun set over the skyline, and for a moment, the airborne creatures looked as big as the skyscrapers behind them, in the illuminated, illusioned distance. I smile under my mask. The city I live in.
My memory of the last time I was entering a city for the first time is vivid: January 7. It was cold and it was the first time I wore my new winter coat. I wasn’t sure how to work all the pockets and zippers and lost my mittens (also new) somewhere inside of it. Crowds of Morman men in suits and soldiers returning from war engulfed the stranger who would soon become my best friend. As I searched through the JFK parking lot for her, frigid air bit at my fingertips. The sea from home was never this cold.
It was night time and I was eighteen and it was 2021, though it felt like it could have been any time, any day, in any galaxy. My hope was for tenderness in this new chapter of my life that I was now entering, alone. But for now, our car took the scenic route home. That was the first time I saw New York’s skyline. In it’s ghostly size and sparkle, I couldn’t think of words or wishes anymore. Just worry.
It’s very dark now outside the train and I’m not sure where we are anymore. My friend is watching Friday Night Lights next to me in the window seat. I peek my head over her to catch a glimpse of the little downtowns with string lights and calm lakes. I bet families are already in bed. My mind wanders…
A friend of mine from high school sent me a story of hers about a train recently. As I read it on the toilet, I cried. Then I read it again. It was about a party we all went to, where she ended up anxiously hiding in my car with our other friend, waiting to leave. On the drive home once we all decided to bail, I rolled all the windows down as we followed alongside one of those freight trains that only passes on silent nights.
Her story took me through the night in shooting detail: leaving school after gardening club, the skate park we would hang out in, the taco place we ate at, the four stories of the house that would throw all the parties. She made me realize these people’s faces, like the one girl who was always a little too drunk, were clear in my mind with perfect detail. How I thought I forgot them, like they were never really there.
The little details of home from the story somehow reminded me that it really was a place that had once existed, not just something that pops into my head here and there. I had forgotten about my silver winged key chain since I moved away, and for some reason I felt guilty. But, I remember how horrible of a night that was, as I too, remember the train and sea. But, I guess I let it slip my mind that they came together. A different human was swallowed by those things in a different time, it seems.
When I cried, it was for her words, and for how they could have been my own. I cried for all the bits of home I’ve let slip my mind. And I cried for that night of simultaneous timelines, in which they still seem to be moving. She’s in a new city too, yet trains remain on our minds.
I think all of my answers are in stories about trains, but I don’t know why…I will keep taking them until they lead me to an answer.
For now, I am sleepy, and in one hour and four minutes I will depart this train into a new city once more.