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3.3.4
73rd day of Winter
13th day of the Moon
taking the tren from San Diego to Los Angeles to Seattle
from notebook draft today on the train typed tomorrow night outside Seattle
INCOMPLETE
In the darkness before dawn we pass through dawn we pass through San Diego city streets
from uptown into downtown.
- I hope you're not planning on taking the freeway - Mom says.
- But it's five a.m.!
- Mmm, yes, I guess you're right. I don't think I've ever seen the
streets so empty.
- Yeah.
It is so very still, this time of dawn. P (la
Amarga) told me last night that she can hear the sound of the 06:12 train
leaving every morning, she remembers the trip she took with K and F and S
a year or so ago, to Oakland on the Starlight. They left, like I am,
on the early morning train from San Diego. Mom answers my story.
- Oh, yes, Daniel. I used to hear the sound of trains, years ago, when
I grew up here (in North Park). It always made me want to be
traveling away somewhere.
- I guess the rumbling noise of locomotives comes up the canyons, eh?
- Yep. Maybe so. Sound travels far in the quiet of this hour
before dawn, no?
- Yes.
We drop down the highway from their Mt Soledad house. Take the Front
Street exit into semifiction. You know I won't tell you where my parents
really live. Sorry. But I park, anyway, in the loading space
in front of the old Santa Fe station on Kettner. Pull out my two bags
from the trunk of her car while she comes around, settles into the driver's
seat, readjusting mirrors and seat for her trip back home. We kiss
goodbye through the window.
- Thanks for coming down, Mama, this is way beyond the call of duty....
She touches my face. - Have a good trip. Call me when
you get there.
Smiles, waves, drives away.
Go into the station and wait. Half an hour early. Join the few
scattered people scattered in the great mission style hall from 1916. These
shining wooden benches, those tiled walls. Santa Fe. Atchison,
Topeka and.
Bing bong bing - Amtrak Surfliner train number such and so to Los
Angeles and Santa Barbara first boarding call - bong bing bong.
Only a half dozen people in each of the four long cars. Beautiful rolling
stock.
Dawn paints the clouds overhead as we roll past Old Town and Mission Bay,
steadily picking up speed.
"See how unstressful that was?" a could passengers near me are chatting.
"Not all that airport bullshit. You just buy your ticket and
get onboard. Trains are the way to go."
It's been raining around here for a few days. The air is clear, with
puffy clouds floating so clean overhead. The hillsides shine gray and
dull green. The sun peeks out of a cloudbank over the eastern mountains.
I am leaving the land where I grew up, heading north, north, north.
This is only the first step of a journey that will take me all today
and into the night tomorrow. We trundle up Rose Canyon.
We rattle around the crest of Miramar. Down Sorrento Valley, into the
world of north county. Water is flowing in the arroyo, the stream,
I mean. The concrete creek has been flushed. An egret fishes
and walks on stiltlike legs. We crawl past new construction at the
big merge of 5 and 805. The cement channel flows into Penasquitos lagoon.
Sun goes in and out of clouds. Another egret prowls the swamp.
The lagoon is full, its mouth open to the sea.
I will not want to work any more tomorrow night when I type this. The train travels north in silence
of this incomplete page only a few lines from my steno notebook scribbled on the train. Rails rattle and stops stop where passengers get
on and off until we finally reach downtown Los Angeles. Yes. Then
we shall transfer over to the starlight north to northern California, Oregon
and Washington. I will be riding trains here until tomorrow night. Yes.
But now, okay, bye.
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copyright 2004 daniel charles thomas