~life’s rich pageant~

February 15th, 2009

Generally we drive, but for this trip to Zurich we took the train. Maybe the ride was my favorite part. I used to ride Amtrak several times a month for work, from New York to Philly or Washington. A lady can do her best thinking on a train.

I was thinking what if I were dead? Not now, but later, dead and offered a chance to have this very moment? A random bonbon in the worn velvet box of life: a child’s voice sing-songing at the back of the car, behind me a human hangover reeking of drink and still drinking, across the aisle a family playing cards, laughing, the land taking up or unfurling, depending on how you look at it, houses, farms, fields, wells, silos, hills, muzzy sheep, jutty cows, metal wheels on metal tracks, the conductor’s stream of chatter, the smoke in great puffs (in my mind anyway), air, birds, airplanes, life’s rich pageant.

I shot a little footage of the winter sunshine, coming home.