All aboard

I have a love/hate relationship with trains. They are inconvenient, slow and often unpredictable. For the four years I spent up in Montreal, a ten hour train ride was my main way of getting to and from school. I grew to despise Amtrak's Adirondack route. Each time I would suffer through so many stops, hours waiting for customs at the border.  More than once I made the trip on minimal sleep and with a crippling hangover (you'd think I'd learn). 

When I was in Italy, I spent every Saturday at a train station in some tiny overlooked town, leaving what had been my home and my family for the week, only to board a train and start all over again. So often I just wanted to take some time and enjoy where I was and who I was with, to take a little break from the road. 

Now I'm living in Boston, riding subway cars multiple times daily. Each time is  different experience, new people to watch, new conversations to eavesdrop on. At the moment, I find myself on the commuter rail to Providence. What is not normally a pretty view out the window is even bleaker now that the yellow-orange leaves have fallen from the maple trees and only the grungy brown oak leaves are left hanging on.

And yet, it is safe to say my train-love outweighs my train-hate. I'm at home in train stations. They hold a promise of adventure, of stories not yet told. I sit here, rocking to some Jason Mraz (specifically Make it Mine) and I feel like I'm in a movie as the buildings, cars, trees glide past me. I remember a 22 hour trip from San Remo all the way down to Sicily - first a sleeper train to Rome's Termini station, then a 12 hour trip down along the west coast, through Naples, onto a ferry, off a ferry and finally arriving in Acireale, just north of Catania. That train trip showed me a whole country. It was my grand introduction to the summer that would follow. 

Trains are so much more personal than planes. You're down on the ground, you can see life happening. And they're so much more welcoming than buses. Buses compete with traffic, traveling the infrastructural arteries of a place without getting close enough to see the beauty. Even the train to Montreal was a beautiful trip, traveling up through the woods of Vermont along the shores of Lake Champlain. I'd often see blue heron, deer, and bald eagles. In the woods houses were nestled, smoke rising from chimneys. In winter ice fisherman sat rigid in folding chairs on the lake. 

Trains are fascinating. While out the window you can see life as it passes, on the train you can see it up close and personal. You get a real broad slice of people from the area, businesspeople, students, economically disadvantaged, regular joes on the way to the football game, and me. 

Trains make me nostalgic and hopeful and ready for an adventure.

A Practically Perfect Halloween

Oh Halloween, that day of mischief and mayhem. Generally I'm not a big fan of this particular holiday, but this year was different. For once I didn't have a half-assed costume. I wasn't a cat or a cowgirl - I was an actual recognizable character. As many of you know, Mary Poppins made  her debut this year. A few people have said, "of course you would be Mary Poppins" and I'll admit that it was not the most adventuresome costume.  I could have shown a little more skin, and probably will next year. But there is no debating that my costume was a hit.

For starters, we had a costume contest at work. The grand prize was an extra paid day off, which is nothing to sneeze at. So I figured it was worth a shot. As it turned out, only 4 people dressed up at all, and only 2 (myself included) put in any considerable effort. The other contender was a woman dressed as a scary old man with crazy gray hair and a cane. Much to her embarrassment, she realized once she got to work that her costume closely resembled another coworker of ours. Though it wasn't her original intention, everyone thought she dressed up as Norm. Because of the inside joke factor (and I think also the fact that she's been around longer) she got double the votes that I did. Bummer. 

Later that afternoon, the woman running the costume contest stopped by my cubicle. She informed me that they were awarding me an extra vacation day also just because I went all out. Sweet! Mary works her magic! I was a little disappointed that I didn't win outright, but hey I'm not picky when it comes to bonus vacay.

Halloween night, I re-donned my Mary ensemble (yes, she and I are on a first name basis now) and we went out on the town. People in the street cheered me and stopped to take pictures with me. At the bar people came over to our table specifically to say I was their favorite costume of the night. When we went for drunk food, people in line tried to get me to sing Spoonful of Sugar. You will be happy to know I was not so far gone as to acquiesce. 

All in all, I would say it was a success. I have already planned what I will do next year, but you will just have to wait and see. Cheerio 'til my next post! 

Early onset quarter-life crisis

I have been absent from Letting Go of the Handle, but I have been called back. A niggling feeling is telling me to write. I believe it's very important to follow your gut, so I hereby resolve to post 2 - 3 times a week and to work on my book a minimum of 2 hours a week.

I've been feeling a need to express myself, to be a little bigger than this life that I'm living. That sounds terribly pretentious, but I can't think how else to put it. I'm feeling antsy and confined by the 9-5 so I've poised myself at a crossroads as to what I want to do next. I've got a list of things I know I don't want, but decisions concerning my career, further education, ultimate location etc, cannot be made by process of elimination alone. I need to come to some concrete conclusions about what I do want to do with myself. 

I won't let life happen to me. I intend to proactively influence the course my life takes. Though I believe fate, coincidence, destiny - whatever you choose to call it -  has a role in how and why things happen, I think that without some action on my own part, these forces can't express themselves to their fullest potential. Things happen for a reason, yes, but in order for "things" to happen, I've got to do something first!

This is some heavy soul searching to do, so I intend to work it out by writing it out. Stick with me on this little journey of mine - I promise to make it fun (though this initial post might not be the best example of that, lol). Any thoughts, suggestions, expressions of moral support etc are always welcome.