A Much-Awaited Train Ride (Week 4 of Fireflies at Dusk: A 52-Week Journey)

                                                                               

Two different views  from the train window.  I'd always pictured going on a trip
just like this from Portland to Seattle: mild, cool and gray,
the scent of rain, charming bridges, the coastline.  

And then alongside a grassy patch, a short burst of sunlight came
through spilling shadows onto my table in the dining car.    

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to go on a long train ride.  As a child, I day dreamed of going on one in the Pacific Northwest where the weather was rainy over green fields with mountains in the distance.  I imagined myself in a dining car eating a meal, looking out at the stormy horizon, feeling warm and cozy as the world unfolded parts of itself I had never seen.

The day dream continued on.  In my 20s, during a particularly hard time of my life, I secretly clipped out an Amtrak Cascades ad from a magazine showing a woman sitting beside a train window revealing a beautiful, misty landscape. I kept this picture tucked away in a drawer in my apartment.  On a really bad day, I would take it out to remind myself I would someday be in her place.  

Though we all have a big dream for our life, we all have at least a few little dreams, too.   We find ourselves often working on attaining that big dream because of motivation or some other persistent drive.  Yet you really can go your whole life and have some little shadowbox dream or some small slice of happiness you long for that is completely attainable, but you just never let yourself do it.  You just never take the time.  Some responsibility or another always keeps you from being able to go.

Go.

Get ready now.

And get ready to find some part of yourself that you thought was discarded, or trampled on, forgotten.  In moments when you embrace something that your heart is calling you to go after, you might surprise yourself with how alive you really are.

These moments help us see how we often do not realize how truly alive we really are.

(c) 2011 writing and photography by Chloe - all rights reserved