Day 4- May 23, 2006- en route to Vancouver
Washington
Doug has been writing down the names of all the towns we stop at, all the places we pass through. I can't keep track- to me, they're all the same, just a bunch of middle of nowhere towns waiting for Kevin Bacon to come in and shake things up for a while.
I'd hoped to be learning something from this ride- something that would make the extra days worth it, but I can't say the experience has changed me or opened my eyes as of yet. I mean, it's sort of amazing that anyone lives out here, and when we're passing through these vast wasteland fields or mountains, I try to remind myself that there are worlds outside the city- something that's hard for any New Yorker to ever really reinforce enough to believe.
We've been passing in and out of fog all morning. I've been up since before the sun rose, which I'm not sure is due to still being on Eastern time or just the fact that it's not all that comfortable to sleep on a train with a suitcase eating up your leg room.
It's pretty out here thought- there are lilacs and forsynthias lining the track and I'm sure that the mountain air tastes and smells entirely different than even upstate NY air. I've just got that feeling.
Doug says I ought to stop comparing everything to things I already know. He says I ought to let them be new and unique and apart from everything else. He said this after we passed through a mountain town this morning in middle Washington and I said it looked sort of like Altoona. I guess it's easier for me to compare, to stay grounded in some sort of framework on how to view things. Everything's probably connected anyway, or will be some day so I might as well start doing that bridging work now while I feel like I can keep track of what's what. And what's not.
We should be in Seattle soon, and from there it's another few hours by bus to Vancouver. I'm excited to go and anxious to get there. I've been fantasizing about taking a shower and I guess that's what a few days on a train will do to you.
We're driving along a road now so I can watch town names flash by on green highway signs and I keep wondering to myself is this what they call a highway out here?
I keep hoping to have this profound experience that will tell me who and what I am, exactly. In my writing class last semester, everyone was always talking about how they found themselves in foreign lands and I wonder what it says about me that I stay within this comfort zone of English only places that I won't need to get a passport for. And I'm leaving feeling like a New Yorker, but I'm not even entirely sure what that means exactly and I guess I'm looking for myself in the space between the first impressions of strangers. I want to know what I can pass as or if everything about me is readable on the surface. And maybe it's fine to not know, but I want to find out and maybe it's hard to determine these things, or anything else, when I've got Doug with me.
The kid in front of me- the New Zealand one- is keeping a journal and last night I imagined his entries about us, wondering if he writes about us the way I write about everyone around us. I imagine his entries must read something like- "the couple behind me is crazy. The guy- his name is Douglas, I know because she scolds him every half hour or so, often many times in succession, initiates games of ' I love you' that has them repeating the phrase obnoxiously until she goes back to whatever it was she was doing that he interrupted." All that with New Zealand terminology of course. Or maybe he's oblivious. Maybe our interactions, our outbursts, are magnified in my mind only. I never have any way to gauge the way I see things. I just assume that everyone sees as much as I do, and somethings are stark blinding that it's impossible to miss.
Last night, the train split at Spokane. I was awake to see it, though Doug was not. The car behind us used to be an observation deck, but it went with the other half train. We are the caboose now and people keep walking through the car until they get to the back door that looks out on the tracks behind us. Then turn around and I laugh when I see them coming, imagining that someone will be talking to their friend behind them, too engrossed in conversation to look at the door before they step out. Of course, Amtrak has ways to prevent such hilarious tragedies, but it doesn't stop me from watching out of the corner of my eye- fingers crossed.
4PM- Vancouver
Being on a train for three days straight makes you appreciate the little things, like showering and peeing in a bathroom that doesn't move. We checked into the hotel about an hour ago- took a cab here that cost more than I hoped it would and I expect we will need more Canadian cash before these few days are through. Doug is showering now- I went first, I needed it more- and we will go out exploring and to treat ourselves to dinner when he's through.
I fell asleep as soon as I got on the bus. It was raining when we got to Seattle and stayed that way most of the busride up. At customs, I stammered for answers- all the places have blended together so that I can't tell one city's attractions from the next. I suppose they are mostly the same, on this continent anyway, and coming from New York, I may be hard to impress.
It's pretty here. The city is tucked into mountains and I haven't walked they streets yet, but driving through in the cab, we could see them peeking out from behind the buildings. I'm more excited about being here now that I'm actually here. Doug got a map that shows where a bunch of movies were filmed within the city. I want to try to visit some of them and review the moveis when we get home searching for landmarks.
I'm farther from home than I've ever been, but so far, it feels like I could be anywhere.



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