Travels

The Coast Starlight Express left Diridon Station in San Jose exactly on time at 8:23 PM Sunday night, 3/24. We had finished dinner before Oakland and were asleep before Martinez. Our little cabin is 4x7x7, just big enough for two narrow beds at night and two comfortable seats during the day. I take the upper berth, as I don’t think Jay could even turn over in that little space. The train rocks us to sleep. There is the sound of the wheels on the track, the sound of the husky whistle as we approach a crossing. The train stops now and then through the night and the change in motion and sound wakes me, but I drift right back off. It was still dark when I woke a little before 6:00, cloudy in the Siskiyous. We did not get to see Mt. Shasta this morning.

Sunrise was beautiful over mountains far to the east. There were patches of snow on the open ground and in the woods. In the two hours between the time I woke and the time we pulled in to Klamath Falls we saw almost no human habitation other than the little town of Doris. It is big lonely country, as empty as Wyoming or Montana. Between the train and Rte 97 there was a long slough dotted with ducklings, all swimming madly eastward. In a marsh off to the east I saw a lot of water fowl I couldn’t identify in the morning dark.

As we were finishing breakfast Klamath Lake spread out just to the west, big and calm with hardly a ripple across the surface. We had breakfast with a Mexican man in his 50s and his Dad. They are on their way from San Diego to Vancouver to visit family. Travelers on the train are almost universally friendly and interesting to chat with, and our breakfast companions were no exception. The dad was pretty quiet, and his English seemed a little limited, but the son chatted happily with us about work and travel and cooking. Jay never met a stranger, and draws folks into conversation warmly and easily. He has the waitress giggling in no time.

After breakfast we are in the Umpqua National Forest. I remember Reagan saying, if you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all, and to be fair, there’s not a lot of variety in this pine forest. You have to look carefully to see that there are, in fact, several different species with their different branching structures and different types of needles. And of course, there are variations in age and height and health. The snow is deeper here, and the world slides by, white, shades of dark green, and a grey sky. We’ve turned slightly west and are heading through the forest towards Eugene. Above 4800 feet my ears start to pop a little and the wind has picked up. For long miles the forest is close to the tracks and we scarcely see fifty feet into the woods. But suddenly, the mountainside falls away into a steep valley and we have a long view. Across the ravine the mountains are stony, the trees sparse. After a full week of visits, wonderful as they all were, this day of quiet is a welcome break.

Down at 1030 feet there is a lot more variety in the flora. There are birch with their white bark and manzanita with orange. We are stopped briefly in the middle of nowhere to let a southbound freight train pass. Dozens of flatbed cars piled high with boards, headed for all the construction work in the Bay Area. The train is unlike any other form of travel, stress free and entirely pleasant. It takes no thought – no navigating, no deciding where to eat or stop for gas or let Charlie out to pee. And unlike a plane, it’s private and comfortable, and we pass through country rather than over it. Here is a lake, right beside us, not a dot from 30,000 feet. Here the landscape is three dimensional, and we pass through it at a modest speed and an intimate distance. We can see into back yards and imagine the lives lived in the homes. We sit quietly in our little compartment, chatting and not, just us two. There is a lot to process from the busy week behind us, and shifting perspective on the life we lived in Palo Alto and the life we live now.

There is so much we miss. Family and friends most of all, of course. The little ones are taller and smarter and more capable. Rowan, heading towards five, cracks the eggs, whisks them, melts butter in the pan and knows when to pour the eggs in and how to stir them. Asher and Kortney will still snuggle for a bedtime story but mostly, they are busy. The adults change less, and it’s easier to touch base and leave. We saw all our kids, and five of the seven grands (not Fiona or Cian this trip). We saw nearly all of our beloved chavurah, missing only the Shaperas and Bonnie. The visits are bittersweet, reminding us how much we miss the contact, the friendships with deep, old grooves of shared memory. We were at services in the Beth Kehillah at Beth Am Friday night, and had our thinking and behavior challenged by Rabbi Janet. Sweet to hear Ben Lloyd on the oboe and Russell Norman on the piano, sweet to hear the familiar melodies we love and miss, sweet to hear and watch the little ones in Zimrayah, the children’s choir, and so sweet to hear a couple of hundred voices joined in song and prayer. There are more children in the Zimrayah choir than there are congregants at Temple Beth El in Oneonta most shabbats. We fit in bagels at Izzy’s, lunch at the Green Elephant, dinner at Como Esta, and ice cream at Rick’s Rather Rich. We stopped in for a quick hug from Lynn, our favorite checker at Piazza.

And we drove in the traffic.

I feel a little overloaded by the density of human experience all around us. People drive by in droves, and they could be going anywhere, doing anything, arguing, laughing, hunched over steering wheels with their faces rigid with tension. They live in thousands of separate worlds. They share experiences with small groups of friends, family, colleagues, and perhaps neighbors; but they share it in the midst of thousands of barely related or utterly unrelated experiences. Everyone shares in the rain, but little else. There is a beautiful full moon, but so many people don’t seem to look up to notice it. The stars are faint in the light polluted night. It is never dark. It is never quiet.

Today, April 3, we are home, after a wonderful week in Washington with friends from childhood. So much to write about, but it will have to wait until the haze of jet lag clears. For now, it is just a joy to be back on our hill, sitting in front of the fire with Charlie and Hazel-Tov and Jay. We left a world in bloom in Washington, full of bright, clean, new leaves, and returned to a world at the windy margin between winter and spring. There are still patches of dirty, receding snow, and the neighbors’ pond is still frozen. But the air was full of birdsong this morning, and the brown fields seem to say, just wait, new life is coming.