Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Reflections on a Train Ride

I’m sitting on the upper level of a train called Surfliner. no. 774. It is heading south just out of Santa Barbara along the Pacific Ocean on a Chamber of Commerce day at 9:30 a.m. The sun is doing its job with sea, sky and sand. It washes over rooftops of what must be some of the choicest real estate in the country. It brushes trees and shrubs and flowers, sweeps out beyond the horizon, warms the beaches, sprinkles the waves with diamonds. And I have a panorama view through clear clean windows and from a comfy seat on the business class car.

I imagine what it must be like to live here and admit to myself that I almost feel a touch of envy. I don’t see the occupants of these charmed dwellings, not even walking along the ribboned surf, though a couple of dogs are bounding over the wet sands in gladsome joy. They know the moment is theirs. The sea knows too, reflecting its whole gamut of blue and green in slow motion. The people? Where are they? Still a-bed? Who are they? 

I ask myself, would I, if I could, choose one of these places to call my home? I’d be sorely tempted! Who knows that I might someday? How often have I brushed up against my future home and not known it? Even the home I’m heading toward which, for its relative modesty, has about all the charm I can bear for now. About twenty years ago I passed by Quail Creek twice a day on my commute to work and never dreamed I’d ever live there or gave it a second thought.

My heart is so filled with gratitude, the beauty of this moment, the smooth and rhythmic ride, I can’t help thinking there must be something I’ve done to deserve all this. What could it be? What have those who live here done to deserve all this? I think I know. They’ve done just what I’m doing, they’ve accepted it. A dear friend with a century of life behind her paid my way to accompany her on this trip so she could visit another friend of hers in Santa Barbara. She stayed. I’m coming home. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Now I am thinking, how many times do we forfeit the acceptance of an offer to help another and miss out on something magnificent? 

Farther along other dwellings line our route. They are less rich and expansive. Cramped and fenced back yards with humble signs of life. A dog, a child’s tree swing, a barbecue and clothesline. Sometimes more upscale houses sport bright small pools. Often there are taller apartment buildings, clean but generic. No doubt their occupants are on the job somewhere else. And, of course there are the usual manufacturing sites, the junk yards of old cars, storage barns, and an occasional tract of mobile housing. I can’t imagine that these people should be any less grateful or rich than the millionaires or me. The same California sunshine warms them, and something else perhaps. Love? Family? Hopes? Dreams?

For fun I lift my thought to another “train.” I call it the Train of Life. Love is the engine, the power that can pull us along past other scenes as well as the glorious one I’m filled up with now. If Love is the engine of my Train of Life, then what is the caboose? I’m guessing it is money. Why? Because money is the least necessary ingredient to happiness but, whether more or less, it is still necessary and a little can be sufficient when a lot can often not. Three cars follow the engine. They are Time, Space and Health. These are unable to get us anywhere of themselves. They have only the power we give them to limit us or to afford satisfaction and well-being. Also, they are relative to what we do with them, how well we care for them and use them. 

I look around and see some people reading. Others are sleeping. A few are talking to fellow passengers or invisible ones on cell phones. Some, like me, have their eyes on the places we pass, though they seem lost in thought. It’s good to be a passenger on a train. You don’t need to worry about traffic or look for road signs. You’re not confined with a seat belt because accidents are rare enough to warrant that freedom. You can see where you’re going and where you came from, feel underneath the security of those giant wheels on smooth rails on railroad ties anchored to solid earth.  You know that intimacy with nature, with farmlands and humanity that you can’t feel from 30,000 feet in the sky. You can wonder about things. What might it be like to live here? Or over there? What might it be like to climb up among those huge boulders, to bask in the sun, smell the earth and growing things? 

Suddenly everything is dark except a faint reflection of yourself in the window. We’ve gone into a tunnel. We’re blind! But soon we see again and somewhere along the line cars are waiting behind clanging gates for us to go by. On the sidewalk a small boy stands beside his daddy and they wave to us. I wave back and know exactly what that father is saying to his son. “Someday, my boy. Someday.” 
  
My day is today and I’m a little girl again enjoying the ride on the upper level of a train called Surfliner, and that other one, too, called The Train of Life.

2 comments:

  1. Hello fellow train rider on the train of Life! I liked your idea of acceptance, and also it made me think of another quality, that of gratitude. A couple of verses of poems I've learned came to mind:

    -- Our God is Love, unchanging Love, And can we ask for more? Our prayer for Love's increase is vain; 'Twas infinite before. Ask not the Lord with breath of praise For more than we accept; The open fount is free to all, God's promises are kept.

    and this one:

    -- Our gratitude is riches, Complaint is poverty, Our trials bloom in blessings, They test our constancy. O, life from joy is minted, An everlasting gold, True gladness is the treasure That grateful hearts will hold.

    Great are companions such as these fellow train rider!--WK

    ReplyDelete
  2. I felt the rumble of the tracks as I read, "Reflections on a Train Ride" and i saw the scenes whizzing by as you described them. You helped me find the sweet spot in my own personal train ride in life. Truly happiness is finding contentment in whatever state we are in. Your article helped me stop in my tracks and count my many blessings. Thank you, Joyce. I also want to thank you for the tour of the library today. So glad to have such a fine class of people to share and enjoy our writing with. Have a beautiful week ahead and see you on Thursday! Julie

    ReplyDelete