Trainspotting

I have a love affair with trains. The supreme power, the rhythmic sway, the shadowy romance of it all. I can only imagine what the first passengers aboard a steamer in the 1800's must have felt. There were no panes of glass in the windows and planks of wood on which to sit. The dirt and debris of the thick black smoke that coughed out of the regulator pipe was so dense it covered passengers with a layer of soot. But for the first time they witnessed the blues of the sea, the golds of the flatlands, and the purples of the mountains, how exhilarating! Obviously things have changed, but the excitement I feel with every "all aboard!" still warrants the same pioneer feeling.

As a kid I would take the train from Baltimore to Manhattan to take dance classes and see Broadway shows. Taking that New York subway was so intoxicating! Dirty and terrifying, it always seemed to ignite my adoration for the city. The griminess was symbolic of freedom. If I could make it here...you know the rest. Years later, as a bona fide California girl, I yearned to be free of the freeways. The monotony of being solo in a cage, slowly creeping across the infinite web of concrete, felt so...mundane. I decided I was going to employ the Metro line that wove beneath the city streets which was so underutilized, it was almost secret. I was struck by how little traffic there was, the trains were clean and on time, and only $1.25 to ride. What had I been thinking? I rode with the day-workers headed to MacArthur Park and teenage kids skipping school. I made friends with mom's pushing little brown babies to the flower market Downtown and the concert-goers avoiding the $30 parking fees around Staples Center. There were homeless folks, the occasional business person, the ironically adventurous hipsters, hospital workers, people reading scripture to the car, and all the while I did my crosswords, quietly observing and enjoying my time on the train. It wasn't until our time living in Japan that taking the train became less of a lifestyle choice and more of a necessity. That experience changed my life for many reasons, but the whole getting from Point A to Point B thing was an everyday adventure. I planned my routes early in the morning, taking notes and drawing cartoonish maps of my destinations. I tentatively boarded the trains that kept the choreographed chaos of the city in motion. There are unwritten rules and manners associated with riding the train in Tokyo. The first person on the platform is the first to board, and the subsequent line that formed behind said passenger must snake into the car fast because the doors WILL shut on you. I know this from (many) experiences almost losing a purse, or arm, in the jaws of time conservancy. The trains are rigorously kept on time and nothing, not even an extremity, will delay them. Once you actually get in the car, you will be face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee with strangers who ignore you. I imagine this is ingrained into the culture in order to maintain some semblance of calm amongst the confusion, but let me tell you, it can get anonymously squishy.

My favorite times were riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto and all the way to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The lightning fast (300+ mph) train feels like you are traveling though time, and often it did appear you warped back in time like when a silent, beautiful Geisha tip-toed past or the bell of an ancient temple was rung symbolizing a prayer was made. I can picture all 15 of us running, sprinting even, through packed stations, my husband carrying our 70 lb suitcase over his head, trying to make the transfer line to the next city. Collapsing into laughter and high-fives if we made it or cursing and searching for beer if we did not. Sometimes people would get left behind, sometimes we waited. One of us always forgot something in the previous city, and all the hostels were predictably impossible to locate. But it was the trains that made all of these amazing things possible. Now I often wonder how we get by without them. Then I get behind the wheel of my dirty, old, beat-up car, start the engine and ease back into traffic.