What follows are my reflections as we made our way north on the Coast Starlight line. I got on in Emeryville, CA at 10:12 and got off about 21 hours later in Olympia (Lacey), WA. It was a beautiful trip. There are pics available on my Facebook profile in case anyone is interested.
It’s 11:06pm. I’ve been on the train less than an hour and I’m already convinced this is the best way to travel. I’ve traveled on the train many times before in coach. That’s a difficult trip even under the best of circumstances (best of circumstances means no seat mate and quiet neighbors who don't snore)… but this is really great! A woman named Robin greeted me at the door telling me that she had reassigned to the room next to her because the couple who were there would not stop talking. She figured I would be quiet since I’m by myself and now she calls me baby and gives me champagne. Were it not for the fact that she offered champagne to everyone else, I might think I was special. But she still calls me baby.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out how to best utilize my ‘roomette’. I turned out all the lights so I can see better as I pass things in the night. We stopped at Martinez a little while ago. Directly outside my window was a cul-de-sac of sorts with an American flag and some sort of monument… or maybe it was just a sign that said Martinez Train Station. But it made me wonder about how much we “miss out on” by traveling in a plane. Now, I’ve been on this train before even though it was coach, and so I know that there are some really depressing sights… like camp after camp after camp in the central valley that mark the nightly home of scores of human beings who have been marginalized in our American-everything-is-allright-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps society. But that is real life too.
The monuments and the shanty-towns, the American flags and the fires that glow along the tracks… and warehouses and refineries and big long dark buildings that house someone’s weekly paycheck. Maybe it’s just the champagne talking, but there is so much beauty in the world.
9:38am.
Eventually, the smell of someone else’s poo can get to you. And the morning is a fine time to have a room next to the public toilet. Smell aside, this is still enormously fun. I woke up with the sun… not sure what time that was but the first time I looked at the clock it was 6:23. We’ve been in Oregon at least 2 hours now and I’m watching miles and miles of the most beloved landscape I can think of… pine forest and sagebrush at the foothills of the mountains where it starts to become desert.
I thought about why this landscape is beloved to me when most would find it a bit sparse or even ugly. It’s the subtlety, I suppose. The earth is a light brown and it’s very dry. The ground is covered in sage and other similar undergrowth that can take long periods of dry weather. Pines cover the landscape and beyond that, there are miles and miles of juniper. It’s big sky country, seeing distant hills, ridges, buttes, and mountains in the far distance. Very little changes in this landscape, even throughout the year. The pines stay green, the dirt stays brown, the sagebrush stays, well, sage unless it’s in bloom. In the winter you might find a covering of snow in the higher altitudes that lingers until the next time the sun comes out. If you watch closely enough, you might see an animal… brown hare, mule deer, ground squirrel.
Or maybe it’s the sudden grand surprises… like the rushing rivers bringing cold mountain water that offer opportunities for other life to grow out here, or the huge snow-capped mountain/volcanoes, or the bright green aspen groves… or the girl I just saw at the Chemult stop who was dancing around and waving a sign that quoted Michael Franti, “All the freaky people make the music of the world.”
One might assume that this place is full of cowboys, small-minded ones at that. I find that unfortunate. The people I know in this landscape are small-town minded, not small-minded. They don’t just speak about how important community is. They live in a way that demonstrates their love for fellow humans. I remember when I visited Bend before moving there that the thing that struck me most about the people were that they looked me in the eye and they noticed things about each other. For example, if they saw that someone appeared to be confused, they would ask if they could help. Or how the people of that burgeoning town rallied around a local shop owner when she decided to go out of business… not so that she would stay in business and they could continue to take advantage of her presence. But they held a benefit so that she would have enough money for her to decide what was best for her to do. She decided to retire and put the stock of merchandise in storage. She had served her community well as a book store and gift shop owner for the spiritually-minded and it was time for her to be done serving.
And that is what the body of Christ is about.
4:10pm.
The deciduous side of things. Even in the suburbs here in the Valley, the growth is abundant. In the unkempt lawns, the varying types of grasses and plants compete for space and in the neatly-trimmed ones, there is sure to be at least 2 varieties of iris growing. All of them have a rhodedendron bush. The space in between supplies the eye with ferns, berry bushes and broad-leafed trees producing a wealth of shade. These leaves are all new here since they don’t last for more than a season. Unlike the needles and leaves of the desert that stick around year after year, gathering dust until the next mild rainfall. The water runs the other direction down the mountain and feeds into wider, slower-moving rivers, eventually finding its way to the Willamette and then to the Columbia and of course, to the Pacific Ocean where its lifecycle starts all over again.
We are in the suburbs of Portland now, running behind because, as I recall from somewhere in dreamland, we had a medical emergency and someone was taken off the train between Eugene and Salem. I was napping so I barely remember the event, but I hope they are not suffering.
When you view the suburbs from the train tracks, you usually see the less “desirable” backyards because it seems that no one wants to live near the tracks. In Bend, the only area of town that could possibly be referred to as a “ghetto” was next to the railroad tracks. I lived there in a very nice little house, as many of them were because nothing in Bend is really all that bad. My point is that I liked living next to the tracks. I loved being able to hear the trains come into town. Granted, I never lived right on the tracks so I may have been singing a different tune, had I been closer. Regardless, apparently this is just another way in which I demonstrate how weird I am.
We are leaving Portland now and I just realized that means that we have to cross the Columbia River soon. Cool. [afterwards] All in all that wasn’t terribly spectacular. But I’m pleased to report that someone hung a strawberry-scented car freshener in the restroom.
Welcome to Washington State!