Sunrise on the Sightseer Lounge

Dear Jamie,

It’s so nice to hear from you again, although I wish your circumstances were better. I’m very sorry to hear about your mom - hopefully you were able to enjoy some quality moments with her this past month. How is your dad taking things? If there’s anything I can do for you please let me know.

I totally understand what you mean when you say that you feel lost. For what it’s worth, I think reaching out to friends tells me that you are on the right track. It really is the uncertainty of it all, isn’t it? That’s what hurts the most, I think.

I remember when I first moved out to Portland (eight years ago - Jesus!). Things were not all well in the kingdom, so to speak. On the surface things weren’t so bad. I still had my job at the law firm then and it paid pretty well. I’d just broken up with Alec, if you remember him, and the post-college malaise started to overwhelm me. Friends started moving across the country and before I knew it I was alone and single in a city that I increasingly understood less. I had a couple friends, sure, and I liked Philadelphia more than I thought I would, but I started to get the feeling that staying there any longer would be bad for my well being.

I was telling all of this to my brother one day and he casually mentioned that I should just come to Portland and live with him. I honestly think he said it as a joke at first because he didn’t say anything when I started laughing, but the more I thought about it the more it started to tempt me. I was nervous about it, of course. I only knew one person there and didn’t have a job lined up. But that little nagging thought kept scratching its way deeper into the grooves of my brain and, before I knew it, I was selling my furniture and carrying my life on my back to the nearest Amtrak station.

I will never forget the ride out to Portland. I spent about two and a half days stuck on the train, in coach no less. I had never ridden the Amtrak before and didn’t really know what to expect. The seats were better than I expected, honestly. Unlike plane seats they actually reclined and had plenty of legroom. The leg of the journey from Philly to Chicago was pretty uneventful and I spent most of it asleep. I didn’t have a seat neighbor and so I had plenty of room to spread my exhausted ass out. It was blissful, even if the scenery outside was the same Midwestern trees and farms that we saw through all of our childhood (and I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly miss them).

My seat on the Chicago to Seattle leg was a lot different. I was fine with the idea of sleeping in coach but it was a lot more difficult with someone next to me, and boy was someone next to me. Without being rude, let’s just say that I didn’t really have much space to myself. I was squeezed pretty tightly into my window seat and their persistent cough made me retreat even further. They actually were quite pleasant - they owned a couple farms out in the plains and had family out there so they were going to check in. He even offered to share one half of a Twix with me, which I gladly accepted. I don’t know if you’ve ever bought food from the cafe car on an Amtrak before, but here’s a tip: don’t. It’s bad. A candy bar was going to have to work for now.

My neighbor was hopping off the train in North Dakota in the middle of the night (can’t say I’ve seen that happen on a plane before, I’ll say that) and I realized that gave me an out. On the Western long distance routes Amtrak cars have a luxury that the East Coasters don’t get - observation cars. They’ve got tables and comfy seats that are perfect for watching out the window, kicking your feet up, and getting out of the cramped coach cars for a while. I figured that I could grab my laptop and hang out in there for the night until I had my legroom back.

It was a long, lonely night in the Sightseer Lounge. Yes, I had plenty of space to myself, but that was also the problem: I was by myself. The observation car cleared out by around 10 or so; I was left alone in front of the big windows. Earlier in the night I had enjoyed walking the length of the car a couple different times to get a feel for the place. Because the cars are all separate there are these weird little transitional spaces between them and they rock like hell. They are only partially enclosed, so they shake and rattle as the cars move. The wind gets in too, and the scraping and grinding from the wheels pounds your ears. While the train made me a lot less nervous than getting on a plane these transition spaces certainly didn’t help my anxiety, and I didn’t really want to wake anyone up moving around regardless.

Therefore, I resolved to park myself in the observation car until morning. The northern Great Plains were blanketed in darkness - we might as well have been taking a train through outer space. You couldn’t observe a thing.

I’ll be honest with you, Jamie, I was lost and alone and very sad there; I broke down into tears around 4:30 that morning. The weight of it all came crashing down on top of me. I was really moving across the country, I had really quit a good job with good benefits and good pay, I was on a train in the middle of absolutely nowhere by myself. I was a mess.

I was crying in the lounge seats when Doug and Susan sat down next to me. I would normally describe that as a bad way to introduce yourself to someone, but I don’t think I would’ve met them any other way. They were retired and heading to Glacier National Park and they wanted to watch the sunrise. Susan put her arm around me and asked what was wrong. I honestly didn’t know, and I remember apologizing profusely for bothering them. Susan just gave me one of those sympathetic sad expressions and pulled me against her. I’ll never forget what she said next.

“If your eyes are filled with tears,” Susan said softly, “you’re going to miss the sunrise.” She brushed away my tears with her thumb.

“And trust me, if you miss the sunrise out here you’ll want to cry even more,” Doug said, chuckling a little. He made some old man sounds and settled into one of the solo lounge chairs.

You know me, Jamie, and you know that I often don’t want to talk to strangers unless I absolutely need to. When I say that talking to these strangers that morning was one of the best decisions I have ever made, I hope you understand the gravity of that statement, especially coming from me. They were so, so kind. I needed a friend at that moment, and luckily for me I made two.

I vented to them for the whole morning about my worries and fears about moving, about all of my friends drifting away and anything else I could manage to spill out of my blubbering mouth. Doug cracked jokes and shared his trail mix with me and Susan bought me coffee. My seat neighbor had gotten off at some point in the night at a middle of nowhere station; for some reason I didn’t feel the need to return to my seat.

All this is to say, Jamie, that I sympathize with you. That loss that you are feeling is so, so real and I can’t even imagine how I would be handling it. But please don’t forget your friends; I’ll wipe away your tears and share my trail mix with you, too. Maybe take the Amtrak and come visit us in Portland some time soon? :)

With all the love in the world,

Kristen

P.S.   Doug was right about the sunrise. You can’t even imagine all the empty, fertile land and its pink-orange radiance unless you wipe away the tears and look out the window.