Travelling

In the distance, broken bone trees turn to straight-reaching pines with their feet in a thick fern carpet. The swamp, moss-hung and dim turns to a grassy marsh. And again to small ramshackle country houses, an old wooden barn, a one-street town. In the foreground, there is a constant stream of greenery, indistinguishable, broken only by the town or a slow-moving river. Beyond this dream-like rush, the landscape flickers from one scene to the next, moving from logging sites to suburbs in almost erratic jumps. Eventually there will be cities, where the green will turn to a gray rush of buildings and twinkling car lights, but for now the train clicks and whistles through the South.

There are no obligations, I think to myself, when one is on a journey. Especially when someone else is doing the driving.  I've travelled across the Atlantic, across the United States, up and down the American coasts. Sometimes on the plane or train rides there are suits on their little devices, getting work done. But really, I think, they don't count. They are not on any kind of journey; they are just going from one place to another to do what they always do.

I am always nervous in the stations and airports. I put off packing to the last minute and sleep restlessly. But on the train, the bus, the plane, I can relax. I always pack books, notebooks, sketchbooks, and other little things to do, but I rarely make use of them all. Because I don't have to do anything. There are no obligations. The woman next to me will not nag if I do not finish reading the books I brought, nor will she push me to finish the poems I brought to edit. We will just talk until we have nothing else to say. Here on this in-between, this moving place, nothing is required but to sign your ticket and wait patiently while the landscapes flicker by. It seems foolish not to take advantage of this time for resting without sleeping, recharging without thinking. Or maybe just thinking of everything.

So I sit, book in my lap, bittersweet travelling songs in my ears, and watch the scenes pass by in a soothing movie beyond the streaking greens.