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 world, this planet, and I am still trying to make sense of it. Where I come from, it’s very different…

We had some lovely conversation with Rob at dinner, speaking of Peak Oil conferences, and of moving out of the city, of our paths to awakening, and of the paths we can see, only dimly, through the times to come. We told our stories to each other, and in that way, compared notes on what we’d figured out so far about life on this planet. Then we went back to our hotel and got a good night’s sleep.

The next morning we had breakfast, read, wrote, relaxed. Mid-afternoon Rob picked us up and took us to Cafe Zen, near Towson University where our screening would be. Rob’s friends Dan and Craig joined us there for conversation, and then Gordon, who helped Rob organize the screening, joined us as well. Some fried rice and dumplings later, we headed to the venue.

There were about 32 of us in that classroom/theater at Towson U., a mix of students and people from the surrounding community. The picture was good, but there had been no real time for a tech run, and the sound was not right. It sounded heavily balanced to one side, missing the bass end, and the music seemed to overpower the voice-over. Each venue has been different, each sound system unique. In some places the sound has been great. In others, it has suffered. This system was certainly loud enough, but I wish there had been time to work with it.

We are learning so much on this tour…

In any event, the disc played from beginning to end without incident (always a basic measure of success!) and the audience seemed to appreciate what they saw. Afterwards, eight or nine of us stayed and sat in circle for a while. We spoke of art in the world, of right action in the face of our predicament, of the fatal diagnosis and the choices we have to make. We spoke of surrender. We spoke of relationship and community. We spoke of how we felt, and of what we wanted. Like all circles can be, it was sweet and alive and real. We were glad to be there, to connect with these people.

We grabbed some cookies and headed back to the hotel. The next morning we would catch the train home.

Home. For a while. I’m ready.