29 August 2007 - Baltimore, MD
The trains have been way better. At least as judged by the clock…
The North-South train that brought us to New England a month ago was way late…five hours so. But since we’ve been in NE, the trains have run much more on time. Both the Vermonter and the Pennsylvanian have had a strong tendency to show up when they said they would. A bit disorienting… not to be able to count on them being late!
Still, after a month on the road, I am tired of the trains, and ready to be done with them. They consist of an Accumulation of Indignities, much does the culture in which they exist, and they are slowly driving me mad.
The thought of spending another six weeks on the trains, as we journey to and fro around the West Coast, does not fill me with joy and anticipation. The romance of the rails has worn thin, as has the thrill of travel itself. I don’t think we humans evolved to live in this way, traversing huge swaths of land and life in such short times. It does not feel right. And I will be glad, one day, to finally settle into a place, and come to rest.
The trains took us from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, then from Philadelphia to Baltimore. They conveyed our bodies from one point to another and tossed us out onto some new ground. They passed cities I did not recognized, bodies of water I could not name, and left us lost in another dense concentration of humans and buildings and pavement. As a member of the culture of civilization, I knew I was at Penn Station in Baltimore. As an animal walking the Earth, I was completely lost.
Rob saved us. He picked us up in his old Toyota (I’ve noticed that none of our organizers have been Hummer drivers…) and whisked us away to the North, to the relative quiet and sanity of a hotel room, where we could wash up a bit, and catch our breath. You have to understand… I am not from around here. It’s all new to me, this life, this culture, this w