[] am []: August 2010

Journal Entry: On The Train Homeward Bound

13 August 2010

7:00pm


location, taken from the train close to the The New Mexican Arizona boarder at approximately 6:00pm

. . . . . . . . .

    The ride to New Mexico is always a little dull. This has to do with the hour I board the train which is normally at about 9:40pm, the destination arrival time is 11:30 in the morning. The ride home on the other hand is a little different. The train leaves Albuquerque New Mexico at 5:00pm. This makes for an awake crowd. In the lounge car, conversation picks up almost immediately after the train captain makes his announcements.
    This trip I am surrounded by one drunk on his way home to Santa Barbra, a photographer headed to LA, two guys from Idaho--- fresh out of high school one on his way to party in Arizona during his colleges welcome week--- he has his brand new Mac chrome open and playing rap. The other is moving out to live with his sister in San Francisco. At their table is one injured football player…this is past tense, by the looks of him he hasn’t touched a football for a good five years. There is a girl who laughs at very odd things, like the way the photographer hold his camera or looks out the window while framing his shot. She pretends to touch the lens and then giggles to herself when he doesn’t notice.
      The photographer, a round short Latin looking man has portable DVD player now playing on mute because a girl came and asked him for her ear pugs back. He doesn’t really have a neck, his head rests on his broad shoulders, and his elbow rest on the table in front of him to support the weight of his upper body. He is a very kind and outspoken man. He asks me about my camera setting, where I’m from and where I’m going. We talk about New Mexican food and how it is so much different from Mexican food. He asks me why I think they call the state New Mexico, and I tell him I think its because it was one of the first settlements made by the Spanish on what is now United States territory and in it’s earliest days was mainly populated by Mexican’s and Native Americans.
    With them is another girl she laughs a lot too. She has a book that she opens every now again when conversation is wearing a little thin. She is from Minnesota, I can over hear her “don’t ya knows” every few minutes. The drunk keeps asking the cabin assistant when the next smoke stop is, to which the assistant laughs and shrugs his shoulders “I already told you, it’s in flag staff” he says. The drunk continues to hackle him saying it would only take him 2 minutes to “breath one down.” The caption laughs and moves away awkwardly.
     A man dressed like a cowboy in a button up striped blue and white long sleeve shirt tucked into his faded denim genes held up by a brown equally faded leather belt walks down our way through the lounge car. His eyes are hidden partly by the shadow of his deep rimmed cowboy hat and he walks toward him leisurely moving with the bumps and gurks of the train on his booted feet. The photographer asks him if he would not mind to stop and pose for a photo, as the cowboy agrees about seven other people pull out their cameras and instantly the man begins cracking jokes and changes his poses for the cameras. He holds up to his chest a blue tattered book and stands there, sucking on an unlit cigar, back straight with pride. One of the two girls asks his name and he shouts “Sunny” over his shoulder as he exists the Lounge car toward the dinning car.
    At my table sitting across from me a Latino man sets down his computer and our eyes exchange the typical wordless conversation of “is this seat taken---no it’s not.” He sets his computer on the table and asks me “business or pleasure?” Confused I tell him pleasure, and explain that I am writing. He asked me what I write, and I told him, mostly observations. I describe to him my writing as a personal narrative of sorts. Then I realizes by his delayed response that he was asking about my trip. He tells me he is a writer and that he writes music. I ask him if he plays any instruments, and surprisingly he says he plays the accordion.
     The car has gotten quite and I look around to see who has left and who has arrived. The drunk is sitting quietly with his face pressed against the window and a little cluster of families and older women have moved into the emptied tables. I think of the book I've read written by Marian Russell’s journey on the Santa Fe Train some 120 years ago. I gaze out over the landscape and imagine the sound of wagon wheels and I feel somewhat like a pioneer myself. The land I see out the windows of the train is preserved. It is non-inhabited, save a few scattered shacks and fences.
      The Sun is now setting fire to the horizon, a ghostly yellow illuminates the car. The women are holding their hands up to their faces in attempt to see their hand of cards. The young people squint. A girl tries to get reception by holding her phone up in the air and a boy is stooped over working studiously on a cross word puzzle while another no older than the age of eight stares intently at a map of the rail road. He marks a place on the page and yanks at his mothers sleeve, “mom mom, lets go there” he says. I know the feeling I think, accept now the only thing keeps me from going is no one but myself.

Every seat in the house was filled at the Orpheum theatre on the evening of Saturday July 31, 2010. Robin Pecknold opened as adoring fans from the far reaches of California gathered under the same roof---all anxiously awaiting to be serenaded by Miss Joanna Newsom's quirky yet undeniably brilliant musical masterpieces. Joanna switched between her harp and piano and was accompanied that evening by a full band made up of two violinists, one percussionist, one trombonist, banjo and bass. They each accompanied her in vocal harmony as well.