anti:freeze

my backyard, shot with the lomo

Sometimes I watch the trains pull into Union Station, and I wonder what would happen if I ran down to the ticket counter and booked a seat. No note. No plans. No credit card. No time to think about consequences.

Other times I think about the tracks, and how I could follow the rails almost anywhere, no need for a map. I could walk all the way to Iowa, back to the trestle where I went to be alone and write in my notebooks as a kid, where I used to lie down and stare at the sky, listening to the trickling creek, feeling the intersection of kinetic and potential. I used to think for hours about the grace and elegance of trains, how they followed such perfect paths, and how my duct-taped Chuck Taylors had no right to tip-toe on the ties or balance on the metal rails. Those rails were meant for something more forceful, more powerful and dangerous, than I could ever be. They held the train to its path. I had to hold myself.