__________________________________
Train…of Thought(s)
by Stephanie Kemp
Train…of Thought(s)
by Stephanie Kemp
One day in 2022 after being mean to my family for several days, I made my friend Heather the Poet read a 4271 word “Train Ramble” I wrote in 1997 and asked her “to pull out the poetry and tell me if anything was there.”
This may have been the meanest thing I’ve ever done to a friend because all I did for 5+ hours on that Amtrak 25 years ago was look out the window from Dearborn to Chicago and try to write down every single thing I saw without assigning anything any meaning because I didn’t want to miss a single water tower and had no idea why.
I thought it was so clever to ask a real poet to decipher my meaning for me (while also having her pull out the good parts so I wouldn’t have to!) but then this happened:
Heather the Poet is also Heather the Person (they are both my friends) and Heather the Person said (something like) this after explaining that she didn’t underline anything “because it’s all poetry.” (She is also the nicest liar I have in my life):
"It’s so funny. You just have the midwest in your bones. When I lived there I didn’t get anything. I felt like an alien. I couldn’t wait to get back to New England. But I do love that your themes are always about transition. You should read Mary O’Malley. She’s a poet who said that we all have three places:
Where we are born
Where we settle, or actually live out our lives
Where we seek and find Home on our own
There it is! Heather and Mary for the win that Stephanie will declare as her own if she ever goes back and edits her train piece!
I am obviously looking for that third one which can only be inside of me!
Only I can find it!
It will be a mental and physical lifelong journey between emotional destinations that will remind me Why We Are Here and Why We All Have To Keep Searching And Sharing What We Know!
But then the Heathers said this:
"My found place is Ireland.”
"Yours is clearly France.”
"I can’t wait to read your airplane piece . How long is it?”
____________________________________________
Train Ramble…(still unedited)
Aka: The Would Be French Residual Michigander en Route to California via a Train to Chicago Who Just Wants a Place to Call Home
A Monday in August, 1997.
Window seat in coach. Amtrak #353. Dearborn to Chicago Union Station. Big comfortable brown seat. A row all to myself. Green fields and trees already whipping by. I am sad that the boy I love had to leave early to go back to California.
(Is this true?)
Trains remind me of the pace life should be. My life, anyway. You see what’s in front of you and don’t have time to to overthink anything because the next thing comes so quickly.
Go, but see.
Go, and see.
Water towers and stretches of spliced highways (or freeways, as we call them here) rush past. Freight trains whistle by in the opposite direction, sometimes only inches away.
What’s in there?
Who needs it?
Will it get there in time?
Junkyards and rusted shacks somehow look beautiful when viewed from a moving train.
History.
Mystery.
What is in there?
Corn grows in small ears. Someone feed the corn! Speedboats sit in the middle of dirt driveways. All welcome. Everyone invited. Truck lots and tree swings, long stretches of green broken up only by the black of an occasional tunnel. Sounds of horns and crossing bells. Hurry. Wait. Hurry. Wait.
And the towns.
You never seem to see people when you’re on a train. Just their cars, their small shops, their homes.
Why is there no train stop in “YPSILANTI”?
A big green park. Farm Bureau Water tower looms over all. Riverside Lawn Services with its chipping paint. Where is the river? Local 725 leads us to the Huron Street Market, where the people come out of hiding to buy Lotto Tickets! The ubiquitous McDonald’s breaks the spell.
More green and a calm brown (brown?) lake as we roll into the next town. A power plant with lines shooting out in every direction…All that Power! making people rush through life and still feel like they’re not getting enough done, making enough money, buying enough stuff. Is this fair? Is anything? Shoulders up. Breathe.
Ding Ding Ding Ding. Maybe I’ll read a book! Maybe I’ll write some more. Maybe I’ll work on the monologues that will let me tell stories that are not my own.
When you tell someone you are taking the train they say, “Have you checked Southwest? They’re running deals.” Or, “Isn’t it over 5 hours? Hope you have lots to read!”
Rush Rush. Hurry Go.
Airports and planes make me feel like there’s never enough time. Trains give me the time back. Almost too much time, until I settle in and the train reminds me that there is no such thing.
Wildflowers in the green. Graffiti in the tunnel.
“First stop: Ann Arbor!” Welcomed by the Gandy Dancer. Is my (ex) step aunt still waitressing there? I liked her. Maybe even loved. And look at all the people! Real people out living their real lives!
Passengers get off the train, others get on. I root for all of them because trains make me nice. Until I worry that someone might try to sit next to me. I talk to myself at station stops not only because I have a lot to say, but also in the hope that it will deter the dreaded, “Is anyone sitting here?” I am always relieved to pull out and have everyone settle down again.
Leaving A2. Horn blares. Bridge over a pond. The green gets its rhythm back. Barns with old window frames and lamps leaning up against their walls. Things to be tossed when someone can get around to it. Things that sell in antique stores in Los Angeles for a hundred bucks. Two hundred if you smash a piece of glass into the wood or an aromatherapy candle into the busted lantern. Authenticity costs.
So much water! All the same color. Calm. Oh wait. Now it is two colors: brown and green. Where is the blue? Still calm. Again, no humans. Why does everyone hide from the train?
Mike, the ticket taker, makes his rounds.“Cafe car all the way to the rear…Bathroom in the back on your left and your right…Hi, Young Man, I’m Mike. Where ya goin today?”
Rent a Car lot in the middle of somewhere. Vans and sedans shine in perfect lines. Bursts of red, white and blue through the green. I smell coffee. Will have to get some. Travelers are waking up a bit. Chattier, moving around. A mother tells her kids to sit down amidst great protest. Conductor over the speaker. “For your safety you must wear shoes at all times…..No running, kids. No running, please.”
Cup of coffee in the bar car. I take a big booth with someone’s leftover Tribune. Tempting, but I don’t want any news to infiltrate what I still think might happen.
Walked through three cars to get here. Most people were asleep or trying. Sprawled out in two seats or smushed into one. We all take turns being lucky. Faces pressed up against windows with crushed features, grown ups lying on top of each other. Kids playing cards. Kids (not quite) running, young people with Walkmen, pairs of ladies chatting, some dressed to the nines, some bigger slobs than me. The conductor sits in the booth across from me. Hat on, black and gray beard. He looks like the captain of the Titanic, I try not to think to myself. He drinks water and has his papers spread out in front of him.
I should have dressed up.
Those kids should not be running.
Bar car has just sold its last two bags of potato chips.
Rural now. Big farms and windmills. Old red barns and horses. Crops that extend so far back that they become perfectly symmetrical. Wells and pristine white farm houses with new trucks in the driveways. Oh no. We are in a subdivision! It feels like an intruder. Is that rude? Everything looks the same. A different kind of symmetry.
Here come the chatting ladies. These two are dressed in travel clothes like we were all, at some point, taught to wear. What if the plane crashes and you are wearing dirty underwear? I think I’ll give up my booth for them. Maybe even leave them the Tribune. I bet they won’t want it either.
Second stop: “Welcome to the city of Jackson. All American City 1986," says the big green sign. I wonder what makes an All American City. Happy people…strong economy…good schools…..jobs! Does Jackson have all of these things? Has it held on to them since 1986?
Ding Ding Ding.
Or maybe it’s the coffee. People’s National Bank has no people but Kuhl’s Farmer’s Market is busy. All Americans buying fruits and vegetables. Doesn’t look like anyone joined us in Jackson, a quick stop. No new noises or voices. No conductor welcomes or warnings.
The Hunt Club and Lodge. Big block of a building with no windows. A sailboat on its sign. No cars in the lot. Where did the invisible people take the cars? (If an alien were to take a train ride he would think cars to be the Earth’s life form - with dealerships as the meeting places and gas stations as the restaurants.)
Century 21. What would the aliens think about our real estate system?
Ted Nugent World Headquarters. Did I read that right?
East 69 and West 94. Do the middle school boys still make fun of “Exit 69 and Big Beaver!”?
Boys…
Holsum Bread Warehouse. Yum. Smell. Smell!
Freshly paved road riding with us on the left…perfectly spaced yellow lines.
A hearse with two orange flags and one waving arm out a tinted window. This does not mean someone is waving. Funeral procession - all lights on. Funny (this is not the right word) that one of the first real signs of life I see from the train is headed to the cemetery.
Enormous junkyard full of cars and tractors. Were they stolen? Broken? Driven to their deaths? Green. Tunnel Green. Ding Ding Ding goes our horn.
At what?
No people, no cars, no streets even, on this stretch. Just green. Maybe our conductor is bored. Maybe he is humoring me and people like me, making the noises we think trains are supposed to make. Or maybe someone is waiting in the bushes to race the train and he just saved them.
Clouds arrive. Puffy whites and grays. A spot of blue in the shape of a turtle seems to be coming with me to Union Station. Power lines have been running along side us all the way. Funny - you forget they’re there and don’t see them if you’re not looking. (Less funny - you can’t see for much of each day if they stop working.)
Patches of yellow wildflowers make you wish for more. Don’t get greedy! Turtle is becoming a duck and falling behind. This feels wrong. Traitorous.
Big farm on a hill looming over a swamp. Huge silo. Grain? Sad that I don’t know what else a silo might hold. Dairy? No.
Cows! (In a field, not the silo…)
Purple wildflowers. Slowing down. Old houses on the right with big porches.
Alpha Tao Omega?
Ah..… Albion College. My cousins. Their (our) friends. Almost me. Perfect college town in Liberal Arts America. Lopez Taco House. Little John’s Burgers & Booze. Main Street USA. Hardware. Five & Dime. More porches. A former boy I knew teaches art somewhere up on one of those hills. A man on a tractor mower cuts perfectly green grass in perfect green lines, except at the corners. Cutting corners never works. Symmetry ruined.
Train has stopped. Why? Puddle on my left. Remnants of Albion on my right. No more blue at all. 12:45pm
Pastel cottage colony. Presbyterian church that looks like a lonely airplane hangar sits next to mauled hay bales. Drooping corn. (I told you to feed it!)
Danger! sign dangling from a power line. Big picnic table with a vase of fresh cut flowers on it sits next to a house with boarded windows. (I first typed widows.)
Mother of the would be running children breaks out sandwiches and opens cans. “Ham or peanut butter. One each.” School yard voice. School bus yard.
“Marshall,” explains the water tower. Warehouses blur together on my left and right. I smell bananas and beer. I forgot they sell beer on trains. Genius. Romantic. I want one. Swing sets and a kid on a big wheel. (A Big Wheel!) Massive camper parked next to a small house. Green to my left. Pink sky to my right. A sporadic tree with turning leaves tries to break into the still green pack, only to be pushed out as if breaking the dress code.
Slowing down. Sun for a second. Train yard on the right. Different colored cars - but in Fall colors only: orange, red, brown, rust. Is this by design or wear and tear? A torn American flag hugs its pole. Larry King with a milk mustache. Business 94. Ding Ding Ding. Silverado Saloon. Men in white jumpsuits and white hard hats load white frames into white trucks. Kirsch Carton Co. Another truck lot.
Sandwich mom and kids gather bags and stretch.
Biggest junkyard yet on left. Refrigerators and unidentifiable metal in piles higher than my window. Gas & Go. Dock F9. A waterslide in a colorful park. Kelloggs! Soapy’s Car Wash. A modern looking train station across from an enormous American flag flying proud and full over another car wash and a Ford dealership. A double Roadway (“Roadway!”) truck waiting for us to move on.
Manners.
A beautiful old hotel-like building on the right looks like it’s waiting for friends running late. I hope the friends arrive. Queen Anne’s lace in a green and brown and gravel lot also waits patiently. What if it is a date? Please don’t let them be stood up!
Hoosier Industries. Ivy growing up the side of an abandoned building. More Roadway trucks. Elks 131. A junkyard with only tires. An entire field of purple wildflowers!
Mike over the speaker system with “…potentially bad news. There is no more food in the bar car.” A new family on board is furious. Mom, daughter, son go defiantly to the bar car anyway to see what is left. “We will try to get you to your destination on time.”
An above ground pool with a floating raft. Dense woods now. Winding roads.
Two storybook green farmhouses with white trim flank a stable of shiny horses. A pristine black Cadillac Eldorado hits on an old Ford pick up. Mike talks to the the new son: “Are you bored? I got something you could do. Want some exercise? Walk up a couple cars and say hi to the engineer.” It occurs to me that I don’t know the difference between the conductor and the engineer.
“68 degrees,” says someone to no-one in particular.
Michigan Grower Products, Inc.
Holland Motor Express politely waiting for us to pass.
Gorgeous old Victorian homes. I want to live in them but they are already behind us. Tired corn yet again. If only more people would listen. Red Wings stickers on the last 4 out of 5 cars that have passed us on the left. Stanley Cups will do that.
I smell smoke.
Dog looking down off of a second story porch at a kid riding away on a ten speed that’s way too big for him. New son is back from visiting the engineer. “Not very exciting,” says his mom to the mother of the kid who gets to go next. “Didn’t even get to see the engine.”
“Next stop Kalamazoo. Thank you for riding Amtrak.” I smell beer again. This time it makes me sick. Dark gray clouds. Two kids on skateboards in an empty swimming pool.
Jesus. I have to pee.
Kalamazoo Fruit Company. Waxed paper bread wrappers.
“Get A Job!”
“Winston Just Got Naked.”
Waldo Stadium. Western Michigan University. West 94. An old boyfriend graduated and then married the right girl.
Two hours to go.
Now that I’ve gone to the bathroom my stomach won’t stop growling.
Water tower says “Lawton.” I have never heard of Lawton.
The first train ride I remember was with Mom, Trace, Gin, Aunt Frannie and Jimmy. Birmingham (or Dearborn?) to Chicago. We were “going shopping!” Jimmy and I played cards and ran around the bar car trying to figure out how to steal a beer. We were 8.
Did I ignore Lawton then? Was I not paying attention? Was I drunk?
The next trip I remember was six New Years ago. Crack of dawn, also Dearborn to Chicago, another boyfriend. Freezing cold, dirty little exhausted rats. We smelled like (and smelled) coffee and were bedraggled, bundled, snuggled. Made a foot rest by tying our scarves like slings from the tray bars. Didn’t move our entangled feet for the entire 5+ hours. People stared at us either because we were so happy (that’s what I thought in real time) or because we looked like we might rob them or scare their children (that’s what I think now). He was an artist. At that point in my life I thought this could only mean that he painted unrecognizable (to me) forms with smeary oils on massive canvases while wearing Carhartt pants and wool beanies, no matter the season.
That was a great ride. A great day. A great New Year’s Eve. I thought he was it.
Hickmott Oil Company.
I am also sure that I would never have used the word snuggled with him, he was snotty that way.
Signs.
A barren field with some fancy watering system. 2:30 pm. Literally no talking or human sounds on the train. What has happened to the people? The only person I see is my neighbor across the aisle. I can’t look at him because I might snatch his sandwich right out of his lucky hands.
Sun peeks out. Makes life seem accessible out the window again. Still no humans or animals, but the green has come back to life for the moment. A little stone house with the roof and one wall collapsed, like a giant stepped on it and kept moving.
More jazzy watering systems over dead crops. Funny that the only farms with visible trouble seem to be the ones that take water from a source other than that of Mother Nature. (Is this true?)
Mike again: “Ladies and Gentleman. Just a reminder that this is a non-smoking train. If we catch you smoking you will be evicted at the next stop. Please abide by our rules. We’ll be in Chicago shortly.”
Sometimes when I look at a word for too long it starts to look wrong. This happened to me the other day with the word “grass.” This is what seems to be happening with all the green I see out the window. It doesn’t look like trees and fields. It all looks like a colony of creatures from HR Pufnstuf.
Or maybe my growling stomach is just reminding me of Land of the Lost. The Sleestaks are slowing down the train on purpose to keep me from getting to Union Station, where Tracy will be waiting for me with the kids to rush me to Potbelly’s for a hot turkey with extra peppers and a milkshake.
I have this funny homesick feeling but I’m not sure what I’m homesick for.
It can’t be Michigan, because I’m in it and have just had a great two weeks seeing everyone I wanted to see and hitting every place I wanted to go. It can’t be Chicago, because I’m on my way there and can’t, at least in theory, be homesick for it yet. It’s not Los Angeles because I’ll be back there in less than a week and even that feels far too soon.
What. is. this. fucking. feeling?
I’m homesick for the feeling I had at the beginning of this train ride.
…homesick from the photo albums I went through at the cabin and this week at Mom’s.
…homesick for the Woodies and the Dawsons and Grandpa on the farm and at the ranch.
…the way I felt on the train with that boy. The boy was wrong for me but the memory of the feeling makes me realize that I need to break up with a different boy.
I am homesick for the me I saw in those pictures.
Homesick for the Tracys and Ginnys in the old photos with their dumb haircuts and the the Tracys and Ginnys that live in Chicago now.
Homesick for the Potbelly sandwiches that I ate for three years and will hopefully eat today.
That’s what it is.
Homesick is just a word for missing what you love and (used to?) want.
Sometimes you can literally go back (Potbelly’s)….Sometimes you can’t (farm and ranch, a much loved cousin who died at 16)…Sometimes it’s muddy and gray and you don’t know if you can go back or not (poor little haircuts, boyfriends on a train).
And sometimes you can only go back through a photo, a memory or a quick, fleeting thought…
It is exhausting, all the ways you can be homesick.
Oh good! The trees look like trees again and my neighbor’s sandwich is gone.
An elementary school.
A church: “You CAN whitewash the spirit!” (Is that good?)
Drizzling now.
An electrical pole that looks like it’s doing a cheer, despite the spitting sky.
A beautiful old stone farmhouse that the giant missed. It looks proud while I feel relieved.
Trees full with all green leave next to trees with no leaves. There is no more push back, only acceptance.
“No one said life is fair,” my dad once told me when he and my mom still agreed on non-negotiable truths.
A big dirt yard with six foot sunflowers and a massive pumpkin on the porch. A gazebo next to a trailer park and a basketball net between them.
A cement truck with a spinning belly. Does it spin because it needs movement to keep from drying up? Maybe the cars and trucks are more like us than we know. Maybe the aliens would be correct in their assessment of our life form.
The lonely Ding Ding finally gets a response.
Honk Honk. (Couldn’t there have been a more elegant answer?!)
Another small town. A group of small music stands surround a motorcycle for sale.
New Buffalo Township Fire Department. My friends live in this town. A baby and another one on the way. A wedding small enough to make and keep real friendships.
Before I can feel guilt for not calling these friends and meeting their babies, an enormous Groucho nose and mustache stare me down from a parking lot full of marble fountains for sale.
Michiana Gas Service next to Cold Beers to Go! Phillips 66. Carter’s Ribs. US Hwy 12.
Sun breaking through but still no blue.
A harbor!
Michigan City, Indiana. An enormous smoke stack. SPORT BA & DECK! Dead ivy on a new building. A steeple poking out over an outlet factory just above Bugle Boy. A downed light post.
Honks battle dings now as a tired Chevy Caprice Classic waits for us to cross, looking grateful for this moment to rest.
Slowing down. Team Toyota! Old Crows Saloon goes up against the Village Tavern.
(No longer) New mom, son and daughter getting ready to get off.
Green. Tunnel. Green.
Where are we?
Slow now. Lefty’s Landing. 3:55pm. Ogden Dunes. Cold and hungry again, still.
Just had a panic that I was on the wrong train. Sort of like “grass” looking wrong and obviously still under the internal threat of the Pufnstuff trees. Are we all in the Land of the Lost?
Factories. Inland Steel Plant. Big brick buildings doused with soot. A still river. More factories. Freight trains now fully block windows on my left and my right.
Flames punch out the top of a pile of something that looks like a homemade NASA rocket. “Next stop Hammond!” Lake Michigan on the right. How long has it been there? Doesn’t a great lake deserve at least a proper entrance? We are inching out a freighter on the race to Chicago. Gone again - the lake and the freighter.
A playground with kids!
A neighborhood with houses that look like they are friends!
They all sit close together, resemble each other and look content with their lots in life (the kids and the houses).
“70 and cloudy in Chicago. Showers tonight. Thunderstorms,” says a man fresh from Hammond wearing too much cologne.
Fire in a trash can next to a newly washed parked car. A boat yard between factories on the right. West 90 to 94.
Three churches and two steeples poke up rom the left. An airplane pulls a message I can’t read. A house with Do Not Enter, No Trespassing and Stop signs nailed to its white picket fence.
Men with yellow hard hats moving orange cones. Junkyard with bikes and boats.
PAY TOLL: 1 mile. Cars $2.00. Skyway Oasis keep left. The McDonald’s payphone where I found out I got the GM documentary job.
“20 minutes to Chicago,” says Mike as he pulls all of our tickets down from their places above our heads. I will miss him. He is nice. (These are things you can admit and learn on a train ride.)
It doesn’t look like Chicago yet, but green through the window is a welcome break from the gray.
Green. Gray. Brown.
Green.
Dan Ryan Expressway. Lots of noise on the train now. Bags opening and closing. Paper crumbling. Kids laughing. Strangers talk to each other now that they know there are only 10 more minutes. People doing the best they can, I still/always try to think to myself.
“Exit from the rear. Please be sure to check the overhead bins for any and all personal items.” (Yet another thing the airplane stole from the train.)
Soccer practice to my left. Purple jerseys, white shorts. Half kicking balls, half jumping through tires.
House. House. House. Green. Gray. Green. Still can’t spot the lake, but it’s comforting to know it’s there.
Kids jump rope.
“Comiskey on your right!” Shiny, new Comiskey Park. Homesick again.
4:30pm. I am starting to smell. With seven minutes left, I realize that I never even went to the old Comiskey because I was always drinking margaritas at El Jardin on my way to the bleachers at Wrigley Field. Maybe I need to give a little (more critical) thought to this whole homesick thing.
Factoryfactorytraintrainblacktunneltrain.
Full.
Stop.
“Welcome to Chicago Union Station. Hope you enjoyed the trip.”
It is too late for Potbelly’s (traffic + little kids = early dinner at home), but I am excited to see Tracy and the little kids.
(Is this true?)
If I recall (and I do), it was a nice ride. Better than an hour flight with some peanuts and Sky Mall shopping.
Makes me (more) excited to have my own kids one day.
(This is true.)
If (god willing) and when (god help me) I do, I will make sure they take the train. I will explain to them (because I would be a very good parent) that even though you don’t always see actual human beings from a train, you see everything you need to know about humanity.
And then I will tell them to stay away from all malls, no matter where they go or how they get there. Unless they are personally invited to a different kind of Sky Mall by the aliens. I mean this seriously…
… but only because trains make me feel like anything is possible.
This may have been the meanest thing I’ve ever done to a friend because all I did for 5+ hours on that Amtrak 25 years ago was look out the window from Dearborn to Chicago and try to write down every single thing I saw without assigning anything any meaning because I didn’t want to miss a single water tower and had no idea why.
I thought it was so clever to ask a real poet to decipher my meaning for me (while also having her pull out the good parts so I wouldn’t have to!) but then this happened:
Heather the Poet is also Heather the Person (they are both my friends) and Heather the Person said (something like) this after explaining that she didn’t underline anything “because it’s all poetry.” (She is also the nicest liar I have in my life):
"It’s so funny. You just have the midwest in your bones. When I lived there I didn’t get anything. I felt like an alien. I couldn’t wait to get back to New England. But I do love that your themes are always about transition. You should read Mary O’Malley. She’s a poet who said that we all have three places:
Where we are born
Where we settle, or actually live out our lives
Where we seek and find Home on our own
There it is! Heather and Mary for the win that Stephanie will declare as her own if she ever goes back and edits her train piece!
I am obviously looking for that third one which can only be inside of me!
Only I can find it!
It will be a mental and physical lifelong journey between emotional destinations that will remind me Why We Are Here and Why We All Have To Keep Searching And Sharing What We Know!
But then the Heathers said this:
"My found place is Ireland.”
"Yours is clearly France.”
"I can’t wait to read your airplane piece . How long is it?”
____________________________________________
Train Ramble…(still unedited)
Aka: The Would Be French Residual Michigander en Route to California via a Train to Chicago Who Just Wants a Place to Call Home
A Monday in August, 1997.
Window seat in coach. Amtrak #353. Dearborn to Chicago Union Station. Big comfortable brown seat. A row all to myself. Green fields and trees already whipping by. I am sad that the boy I love had to leave early to go back to California.
(Is this true?)
Trains remind me of the pace life should be. My life, anyway. You see what’s in front of you and don’t have time to to overthink anything because the next thing comes so quickly.
Go, but see.
Go, and see.
Water towers and stretches of spliced highways (or freeways, as we call them here) rush past. Freight trains whistle by in the opposite direction, sometimes only inches away.
What’s in there?
Who needs it?
Will it get there in time?
Junkyards and rusted shacks somehow look beautiful when viewed from a moving train.
History.
Mystery.
What is in there?
Corn grows in small ears. Someone feed the corn! Speedboats sit in the middle of dirt driveways. All welcome. Everyone invited. Truck lots and tree swings, long stretches of green broken up only by the black of an occasional tunnel. Sounds of horns and crossing bells. Hurry. Wait. Hurry. Wait.
And the towns.
You never seem to see people when you’re on a train. Just their cars, their small shops, their homes.
Why is there no train stop in “YPSILANTI”?
A big green park. Farm Bureau Water tower looms over all. Riverside Lawn Services with its chipping paint. Where is the river? Local 725 leads us to the Huron Street Market, where the people come out of hiding to buy Lotto Tickets! The ubiquitous McDonald’s breaks the spell.
More green and a calm brown (brown?) lake as we roll into the next town. A power plant with lines shooting out in every direction…All that Power! making people rush through life and still feel like they’re not getting enough done, making enough money, buying enough stuff. Is this fair? Is anything? Shoulders up. Breathe.
Ding Ding Ding Ding. Maybe I’ll read a book! Maybe I’ll write some more. Maybe I’ll work on the monologues that will let me tell stories that are not my own.
When you tell someone you are taking the train they say, “Have you checked Southwest? They’re running deals.” Or, “Isn’t it over 5 hours? Hope you have lots to read!”
Rush Rush. Hurry Go.
Airports and planes make me feel like there’s never enough time. Trains give me the time back. Almost too much time, until I settle in and the train reminds me that there is no such thing.
Wildflowers in the green. Graffiti in the tunnel.
“First stop: Ann Arbor!” Welcomed by the Gandy Dancer. Is my (ex) step aunt still waitressing there? I liked her. Maybe even loved. And look at all the people! Real people out living their real lives!
Passengers get off the train, others get on. I root for all of them because trains make me nice. Until I worry that someone might try to sit next to me. I talk to myself at station stops not only because I have a lot to say, but also in the hope that it will deter the dreaded, “Is anyone sitting here?” I am always relieved to pull out and have everyone settle down again.
Leaving A2. Horn blares. Bridge over a pond. The green gets its rhythm back. Barns with old window frames and lamps leaning up against their walls. Things to be tossed when someone can get around to it. Things that sell in antique stores in Los Angeles for a hundred bucks. Two hundred if you smash a piece of glass into the wood or an aromatherapy candle into the busted lantern. Authenticity costs.
So much water! All the same color. Calm. Oh wait. Now it is two colors: brown and green. Where is the blue? Still calm. Again, no humans. Why does everyone hide from the train?
Mike, the ticket taker, makes his rounds.“Cafe car all the way to the rear…Bathroom in the back on your left and your right…Hi, Young Man, I’m Mike. Where ya goin today?”
Rent a Car lot in the middle of somewhere. Vans and sedans shine in perfect lines. Bursts of red, white and blue through the green. I smell coffee. Will have to get some. Travelers are waking up a bit. Chattier, moving around. A mother tells her kids to sit down amidst great protest. Conductor over the speaker. “For your safety you must wear shoes at all times…..No running, kids. No running, please.”
Cup of coffee in the bar car. I take a big booth with someone’s leftover Tribune. Tempting, but I don’t want any news to infiltrate what I still think might happen.
Walked through three cars to get here. Most people were asleep or trying. Sprawled out in two seats or smushed into one. We all take turns being lucky. Faces pressed up against windows with crushed features, grown ups lying on top of each other. Kids playing cards. Kids (not quite) running, young people with Walkmen, pairs of ladies chatting, some dressed to the nines, some bigger slobs than me. The conductor sits in the booth across from me. Hat on, black and gray beard. He looks like the captain of the Titanic, I try not to think to myself. He drinks water and has his papers spread out in front of him.
I should have dressed up.
Those kids should not be running.
Bar car has just sold its last two bags of potato chips.
Rural now. Big farms and windmills. Old red barns and horses. Crops that extend so far back that they become perfectly symmetrical. Wells and pristine white farm houses with new trucks in the driveways. Oh no. We are in a subdivision! It feels like an intruder. Is that rude? Everything looks the same. A different kind of symmetry.
Here come the chatting ladies. These two are dressed in travel clothes like we were all, at some point, taught to wear. What if the plane crashes and you are wearing dirty underwear? I think I’ll give up my booth for them. Maybe even leave them the Tribune. I bet they won’t want it either.
Second stop: “Welcome to the city of Jackson. All American City 1986," says the big green sign. I wonder what makes an All American City. Happy people…strong economy…good schools…..jobs! Does Jackson have all of these things? Has it held on to them since 1986?
Ding Ding Ding.
Or maybe it’s the coffee. People’s National Bank has no people but Kuhl’s Farmer’s Market is busy. All Americans buying fruits and vegetables. Doesn’t look like anyone joined us in Jackson, a quick stop. No new noises or voices. No conductor welcomes or warnings.
The Hunt Club and Lodge. Big block of a building with no windows. A sailboat on its sign. No cars in the lot. Where did the invisible people take the cars? (If an alien were to take a train ride he would think cars to be the Earth’s life form - with dealerships as the meeting places and gas stations as the restaurants.)
Century 21. What would the aliens think about our real estate system?
Ted Nugent World Headquarters. Did I read that right?
East 69 and West 94. Do the middle school boys still make fun of “Exit 69 and Big Beaver!”?
Boys…
Holsum Bread Warehouse. Yum. Smell. Smell!
Freshly paved road riding with us on the left…perfectly spaced yellow lines.
A hearse with two orange flags and one waving arm out a tinted window. This does not mean someone is waving. Funeral procession - all lights on. Funny (this is not the right word) that one of the first real signs of life I see from the train is headed to the cemetery.
Enormous junkyard full of cars and tractors. Were they stolen? Broken? Driven to their deaths? Green. Tunnel Green. Ding Ding Ding goes our horn.
At what?
No people, no cars, no streets even, on this stretch. Just green. Maybe our conductor is bored. Maybe he is humoring me and people like me, making the noises we think trains are supposed to make. Or maybe someone is waiting in the bushes to race the train and he just saved them.
Clouds arrive. Puffy whites and grays. A spot of blue in the shape of a turtle seems to be coming with me to Union Station. Power lines have been running along side us all the way. Funny - you forget they’re there and don’t see them if you’re not looking. (Less funny - you can’t see for much of each day if they stop working.)
Patches of yellow wildflowers make you wish for more. Don’t get greedy! Turtle is becoming a duck and falling behind. This feels wrong. Traitorous.
Big farm on a hill looming over a swamp. Huge silo. Grain? Sad that I don’t know what else a silo might hold. Dairy? No.
Cows! (In a field, not the silo…)
Purple wildflowers. Slowing down. Old houses on the right with big porches.
Alpha Tao Omega?
Ah..… Albion College. My cousins. Their (our) friends. Almost me. Perfect college town in Liberal Arts America. Lopez Taco House. Little John’s Burgers & Booze. Main Street USA. Hardware. Five & Dime. More porches. A former boy I knew teaches art somewhere up on one of those hills. A man on a tractor mower cuts perfectly green grass in perfect green lines, except at the corners. Cutting corners never works. Symmetry ruined.
Train has stopped. Why? Puddle on my left. Remnants of Albion on my right. No more blue at all. 12:45pm
Pastel cottage colony. Presbyterian church that looks like a lonely airplane hangar sits next to mauled hay bales. Drooping corn. (I told you to feed it!)
Danger! sign dangling from a power line. Big picnic table with a vase of fresh cut flowers on it sits next to a house with boarded windows. (I first typed widows.)
Mother of the would be running children breaks out sandwiches and opens cans. “Ham or peanut butter. One each.” School yard voice. School bus yard.
“Marshall,” explains the water tower. Warehouses blur together on my left and right. I smell bananas and beer. I forgot they sell beer on trains. Genius. Romantic. I want one. Swing sets and a kid on a big wheel. (A Big Wheel!) Massive camper parked next to a small house. Green to my left. Pink sky to my right. A sporadic tree with turning leaves tries to break into the still green pack, only to be pushed out as if breaking the dress code.
Slowing down. Sun for a second. Train yard on the right. Different colored cars - but in Fall colors only: orange, red, brown, rust. Is this by design or wear and tear? A torn American flag hugs its pole. Larry King with a milk mustache. Business 94. Ding Ding Ding. Silverado Saloon. Men in white jumpsuits and white hard hats load white frames into white trucks. Kirsch Carton Co. Another truck lot.
Sandwich mom and kids gather bags and stretch.
Biggest junkyard yet on left. Refrigerators and unidentifiable metal in piles higher than my window. Gas & Go. Dock F9. A waterslide in a colorful park. Kelloggs! Soapy’s Car Wash. A modern looking train station across from an enormous American flag flying proud and full over another car wash and a Ford dealership. A double Roadway (“Roadway!”) truck waiting for us to move on.
Manners.
A beautiful old hotel-like building on the right looks like it’s waiting for friends running late. I hope the friends arrive. Queen Anne’s lace in a green and brown and gravel lot also waits patiently. What if it is a date? Please don’t let them be stood up!
Hoosier Industries. Ivy growing up the side of an abandoned building. More Roadway trucks. Elks 131. A junkyard with only tires. An entire field of purple wildflowers!
Mike over the speaker system with “…potentially bad news. There is no more food in the bar car.” A new family on board is furious. Mom, daughter, son go defiantly to the bar car anyway to see what is left. “We will try to get you to your destination on time.”
An above ground pool with a floating raft. Dense woods now. Winding roads.
Two storybook green farmhouses with white trim flank a stable of shiny horses. A pristine black Cadillac Eldorado hits on an old Ford pick up. Mike talks to the the new son: “Are you bored? I got something you could do. Want some exercise? Walk up a couple cars and say hi to the engineer.” It occurs to me that I don’t know the difference between the conductor and the engineer.
“68 degrees,” says someone to no-one in particular.
Michigan Grower Products, Inc.
Holland Motor Express politely waiting for us to pass.
Gorgeous old Victorian homes. I want to live in them but they are already behind us. Tired corn yet again. If only more people would listen. Red Wings stickers on the last 4 out of 5 cars that have passed us on the left. Stanley Cups will do that.
I smell smoke.
Dog looking down off of a second story porch at a kid riding away on a ten speed that’s way too big for him. New son is back from visiting the engineer. “Not very exciting,” says his mom to the mother of the kid who gets to go next. “Didn’t even get to see the engine.”
“Next stop Kalamazoo. Thank you for riding Amtrak.” I smell beer again. This time it makes me sick. Dark gray clouds. Two kids on skateboards in an empty swimming pool.
Jesus. I have to pee.
Kalamazoo Fruit Company. Waxed paper bread wrappers.
“Get A Job!”
“Winston Just Got Naked.”
Waldo Stadium. Western Michigan University. West 94. An old boyfriend graduated and then married the right girl.
Two hours to go.
Now that I’ve gone to the bathroom my stomach won’t stop growling.
Water tower says “Lawton.” I have never heard of Lawton.
The first train ride I remember was with Mom, Trace, Gin, Aunt Frannie and Jimmy. Birmingham (or Dearborn?) to Chicago. We were “going shopping!” Jimmy and I played cards and ran around the bar car trying to figure out how to steal a beer. We were 8.
Did I ignore Lawton then? Was I not paying attention? Was I drunk?
The next trip I remember was six New Years ago. Crack of dawn, also Dearborn to Chicago, another boyfriend. Freezing cold, dirty little exhausted rats. We smelled like (and smelled) coffee and were bedraggled, bundled, snuggled. Made a foot rest by tying our scarves like slings from the tray bars. Didn’t move our entangled feet for the entire 5+ hours. People stared at us either because we were so happy (that’s what I thought in real time) or because we looked like we might rob them or scare their children (that’s what I think now). He was an artist. At that point in my life I thought this could only mean that he painted unrecognizable (to me) forms with smeary oils on massive canvases while wearing Carhartt pants and wool beanies, no matter the season.
That was a great ride. A great day. A great New Year’s Eve. I thought he was it.
Hickmott Oil Company.
I am also sure that I would never have used the word snuggled with him, he was snotty that way.
Signs.
A barren field with some fancy watering system. 2:30 pm. Literally no talking or human sounds on the train. What has happened to the people? The only person I see is my neighbor across the aisle. I can’t look at him because I might snatch his sandwich right out of his lucky hands.
Sun peeks out. Makes life seem accessible out the window again. Still no humans or animals, but the green has come back to life for the moment. A little stone house with the roof and one wall collapsed, like a giant stepped on it and kept moving.
More jazzy watering systems over dead crops. Funny that the only farms with visible trouble seem to be the ones that take water from a source other than that of Mother Nature. (Is this true?)
Mike again: “Ladies and Gentleman. Just a reminder that this is a non-smoking train. If we catch you smoking you will be evicted at the next stop. Please abide by our rules. We’ll be in Chicago shortly.”
Sometimes when I look at a word for too long it starts to look wrong. This happened to me the other day with the word “grass.” This is what seems to be happening with all the green I see out the window. It doesn’t look like trees and fields. It all looks like a colony of creatures from HR Pufnstuf.
Or maybe my growling stomach is just reminding me of Land of the Lost. The Sleestaks are slowing down the train on purpose to keep me from getting to Union Station, where Tracy will be waiting for me with the kids to rush me to Potbelly’s for a hot turkey with extra peppers and a milkshake.
I have this funny homesick feeling but I’m not sure what I’m homesick for.
It can’t be Michigan, because I’m in it and have just had a great two weeks seeing everyone I wanted to see and hitting every place I wanted to go. It can’t be Chicago, because I’m on my way there and can’t, at least in theory, be homesick for it yet. It’s not Los Angeles because I’ll be back there in less than a week and even that feels far too soon.
What. is. this. fucking. feeling?
I’m homesick for the feeling I had at the beginning of this train ride.
…homesick from the photo albums I went through at the cabin and this week at Mom’s.
…homesick for the Woodies and the Dawsons and Grandpa on the farm and at the ranch.
…the way I felt on the train with that boy. The boy was wrong for me but the memory of the feeling makes me realize that I need to break up with a different boy.
I am homesick for the me I saw in those pictures.
Homesick for the Tracys and Ginnys in the old photos with their dumb haircuts and the the Tracys and Ginnys that live in Chicago now.
Homesick for the Potbelly sandwiches that I ate for three years and will hopefully eat today.
That’s what it is.
Homesick is just a word for missing what you love and (used to?) want.
Sometimes you can literally go back (Potbelly’s)….Sometimes you can’t (farm and ranch, a much loved cousin who died at 16)…Sometimes it’s muddy and gray and you don’t know if you can go back or not (poor little haircuts, boyfriends on a train).
And sometimes you can only go back through a photo, a memory or a quick, fleeting thought…
It is exhausting, all the ways you can be homesick.
Oh good! The trees look like trees again and my neighbor’s sandwich is gone.
An elementary school.
A church: “You CAN whitewash the spirit!” (Is that good?)
Drizzling now.
An electrical pole that looks like it’s doing a cheer, despite the spitting sky.
A beautiful old stone farmhouse that the giant missed. It looks proud while I feel relieved.
Trees full with all green leave next to trees with no leaves. There is no more push back, only acceptance.
“No one said life is fair,” my dad once told me when he and my mom still agreed on non-negotiable truths.
A big dirt yard with six foot sunflowers and a massive pumpkin on the porch. A gazebo next to a trailer park and a basketball net between them.
A cement truck with a spinning belly. Does it spin because it needs movement to keep from drying up? Maybe the cars and trucks are more like us than we know. Maybe the aliens would be correct in their assessment of our life form.
The lonely Ding Ding finally gets a response.
Honk Honk. (Couldn’t there have been a more elegant answer?!)
Another small town. A group of small music stands surround a motorcycle for sale.
New Buffalo Township Fire Department. My friends live in this town. A baby and another one on the way. A wedding small enough to make and keep real friendships.
Before I can feel guilt for not calling these friends and meeting their babies, an enormous Groucho nose and mustache stare me down from a parking lot full of marble fountains for sale.
Michiana Gas Service next to Cold Beers to Go! Phillips 66. Carter’s Ribs. US Hwy 12.
Sun breaking through but still no blue.
A harbor!
Michigan City, Indiana. An enormous smoke stack. SPORT BA & DECK! Dead ivy on a new building. A steeple poking out over an outlet factory just above Bugle Boy. A downed light post.
Honks battle dings now as a tired Chevy Caprice Classic waits for us to cross, looking grateful for this moment to rest.
Slowing down. Team Toyota! Old Crows Saloon goes up against the Village Tavern.
(No longer) New mom, son and daughter getting ready to get off.
Green. Tunnel. Green.
Where are we?
Slow now. Lefty’s Landing. 3:55pm. Ogden Dunes. Cold and hungry again, still.
Just had a panic that I was on the wrong train. Sort of like “grass” looking wrong and obviously still under the internal threat of the Pufnstuff trees. Are we all in the Land of the Lost?
Factories. Inland Steel Plant. Big brick buildings doused with soot. A still river. More factories. Freight trains now fully block windows on my left and my right.
Flames punch out the top of a pile of something that looks like a homemade NASA rocket. “Next stop Hammond!” Lake Michigan on the right. How long has it been there? Doesn’t a great lake deserve at least a proper entrance? We are inching out a freighter on the race to Chicago. Gone again - the lake and the freighter.
A playground with kids!
A neighborhood with houses that look like they are friends!
They all sit close together, resemble each other and look content with their lots in life (the kids and the houses).
“70 and cloudy in Chicago. Showers tonight. Thunderstorms,” says a man fresh from Hammond wearing too much cologne.
Fire in a trash can next to a newly washed parked car. A boat yard between factories on the right. West 90 to 94.
Three churches and two steeples poke up rom the left. An airplane pulls a message I can’t read. A house with Do Not Enter, No Trespassing and Stop signs nailed to its white picket fence.
Men with yellow hard hats moving orange cones. Junkyard with bikes and boats.
PAY TOLL: 1 mile. Cars $2.00. Skyway Oasis keep left. The McDonald’s payphone where I found out I got the GM documentary job.
“20 minutes to Chicago,” says Mike as he pulls all of our tickets down from their places above our heads. I will miss him. He is nice. (These are things you can admit and learn on a train ride.)
It doesn’t look like Chicago yet, but green through the window is a welcome break from the gray.
Green. Gray. Brown.
Green.
Dan Ryan Expressway. Lots of noise on the train now. Bags opening and closing. Paper crumbling. Kids laughing. Strangers talk to each other now that they know there are only 10 more minutes. People doing the best they can, I still/always try to think to myself.
“Exit from the rear. Please be sure to check the overhead bins for any and all personal items.” (Yet another thing the airplane stole from the train.)
Soccer practice to my left. Purple jerseys, white shorts. Half kicking balls, half jumping through tires.
House. House. House. Green. Gray. Green. Still can’t spot the lake, but it’s comforting to know it’s there.
Kids jump rope.
“Comiskey on your right!” Shiny, new Comiskey Park. Homesick again.
4:30pm. I am starting to smell. With seven minutes left, I realize that I never even went to the old Comiskey because I was always drinking margaritas at El Jardin on my way to the bleachers at Wrigley Field. Maybe I need to give a little (more critical) thought to this whole homesick thing.
Factoryfactorytraintrainblacktunneltrain.
Full.
Stop.
“Welcome to Chicago Union Station. Hope you enjoyed the trip.”
It is too late for Potbelly’s (traffic + little kids = early dinner at home), but I am excited to see Tracy and the little kids.
(Is this true?)
If I recall (and I do), it was a nice ride. Better than an hour flight with some peanuts and Sky Mall shopping.
Makes me (more) excited to have my own kids one day.
(This is true.)
If (god willing) and when (god help me) I do, I will make sure they take the train. I will explain to them (because I would be a very good parent) that even though you don’t always see actual human beings from a train, you see everything you need to know about humanity.
And then I will tell them to stay away from all malls, no matter where they go or how they get there. Unless they are personally invited to a different kind of Sky Mall by the aliens. I mean this seriously…
… but only because trains make me feel like anything is possible.