E and I took the train to Santa Fe this weekend. Neither of us had ever ridden the route that the Mister takes everyday. It was a soulful journey. I watched the graffiti on the old warehouses by the downtown station shift into small, chainlinked yards, then, set farther back from the tracks were larger yards with trampolines and sandboxes. Even further along, the mesas and llamas and solitary pick-up trucks evoke a kind of nostalgia for a small-town way back when. Men in folding chairs sat along the tracks in places, passing their day by the train's schedule. I wondered if they daydreamed about us, just as I was daydreaming about them.
I remember being in college on the east coast and taking the Amtrak from New York City to New London, CT with the Mister. It was our first trip alone together. I was nineteen. Only eight years older than E is now. We sat in the cushioned seats, snuggling, the Manhattan skyline receding behind us and I remember thinking I was so worldly, on a train with my lover. Then the Mister got a severe bout of motion sickness and my fantasy was broken a bit.
There are so many things I want to write about. Girls turning from girls into something else. The friends that make them giggle and roll their eyes and feel powerful. The friends whose lives they envy because everyone else's rules seem better than your own. Or maybe everyone else's rules seem absent. Maybe they seem like they're already riding trains with lovers and not having any motion sickness whatsoever. These girls, in their short shorts, with their braces on their teeth and miniscule waists are so sweet to me that I have a hard time remembering that I have a job to do. Sometimes my job is going to make them mad. Make them close their bedroom doors and exhaust all the curse worlds they know complaining about me. Sometimes I'm going to want to join them.
I remember being in college on the east coast and taking the Amtrak from New York City to New London, CT with the Mister. It was our first trip alone together. I was nineteen. Only eight years older than E is now. We sat in the cushioned seats, snuggling, the Manhattan skyline receding behind us and I remember thinking I was so worldly, on a train with my lover. Then the Mister got a severe bout of motion sickness and my fantasy was broken a bit.
There are so many things I want to write about. Girls turning from girls into something else. The friends that make them giggle and roll their eyes and feel powerful. The friends whose lives they envy because everyone else's rules seem better than your own. Or maybe everyone else's rules seem absent. Maybe they seem like they're already riding trains with lovers and not having any motion sickness whatsoever. These girls, in their short shorts, with their braces on their teeth and miniscule waists are so sweet to me that I have a hard time remembering that I have a job to do. Sometimes my job is going to make them mad. Make them close their bedroom doors and exhaust all the curse worlds they know complaining about me. Sometimes I'm going to want to join them.
Comments
Post a Comment