Reverie on the 17:11

Coming along the mountain path

I noticed something endearing

About violets

-          Bashо̄ | 1644–1694

At peace I fly, as the country reels by.  A pastoral vignette of England plays through the window as the train courses elegantly through sun-sotted wheat fields, rolling low hills and chunky stone tunnels.  Needle and thread. 

I am carried towards a new beginning.  The miles accumulate between me and the old terraced house, the friends, the quaint, gentle streets.  Promise certainly awaits at 19:32, the end of the line - but so too does a threatening coven of new fears, commitments and problems.  I am at once intrepid and enticed before the seething and shifting creature of change, goaded by the prospect of success but cowed and nervous in equal parts.

And yet here in the near-empty carriage - where there is no sound but a low hum and the occasional metallic hiccup - everything is momentarily perfect.   

I cast my eyes outside again to a scene evocative of a Gainsborough painting.  The sky yawns with the first signs of fatigue – tinted now with a most faint orange hue – a canopy over farms, ancient woods and forests, punctuated by pastiches of settlement.  Narrow serpentine roads climb up gentle green peaks of various shape, and a village nestles snugly at the base of Hog’s Back hill.  Becks gurgle along, larger ribbons of water cast over loam, coil and loop through the soft land.  Tractors trundle through fields flecked with rolls of hay.  In the distance, the occasional medieval church tower proudly pokes through verdant oak trees – its graceful gothic stonework sprouts corbels and gargoyles, presiding over the locals.  Nestled playfully in the high reaches, they preside over quiet moments of peace, weddings and drunken nights, as they have done - and will continue to do - for hundreds of years. 

Elsewhere, flocks of pristine suburban homes gather in estates, whilst older, gust-blackened terraces run parallel to the line, clothed in 1930s red brick. The train glides over valleys and industrial canals, waters the colour of cola.  Humble dark blue signs herald the arrival at the stations, where commuters bustle, lovers recline on benches, children clutch colourful miniature suitcases and old couples fuss over bags.  One can imagine the noise and the smell of fumes, even from within the confines of the carriage.

Zipping from point to point in that transitional space, neither here nor there, one feels a tremendous sense of calm, as worries beyond the railway tracks are held in suspense.  Suddenly there is joy in slowness, in doing nothing but existing and observing.  I notice things which otherwise pass me by - the innocent patterns emblazoned on the seats, the self-conscious munching of grazing cows, the diversity of flora and the nobleness of trees.  Even place names, which are usually only evocative of a timetable litany, seem to sing with a new resonance in this pleasantly uneventful context.  I let the syllables in ‘Long Buckby’ clunk around my mouth like a ball in a game of cricket.  This 60-tonne angel continues to canter comfortably along as all the small things in the world unfold around me, suddenly visible. [1]  As I am pulled inexorably towards reality and the destination, it is difficult not to wish the journey would last much longer - that I would keep my mandate of having nothing to do for a little more.  I do not have to think or analyse - merely bask in this reverie at 63 miles per hour.  Suddenly misgivings and fears melt away beneath the dipping sun. 

How best to describe this reverie?  It is not quite elation, for as much as anxieties disappear from the mind, they cannot - and indeed should not - be exorcised fully.  They remain to temper us and remind us of our sensitivity.  Perhaps more accurately this is a lesson in perspective which temporarily banishes such worries to the perimeters, where they are momentarily invisible.  In looking through a window, outward, one is diverted from dwelling inward.  

Perhaps it is also valuable to be reminded of being small.  Hundreds of miles have yearned past in a brief encounter with all manner of towns, hills, fields and forests - a full vision of all kinds of land and life. Seeing roads stretch carrying thousands of lives, watching the windows of buildings begin to light with a warm glow as the evening sets in, a chiaroscuro against creeping darkness, I draw comfort in being one among many.  Fears are dwarfed by the visible presence of so many others living a life just as I live mine. 

In other, somewhat contrasting ways, the train journey gives me a classic dose of the green, windswept confidence of youth.  Like in the wheels of fortune which decorate the archaic manuscripts, I anticipate the coming of highs and lows, friends and lovers, but most importantly of new experience - and all of it abounds on either side of the tracks.  I am shown a world bubbling and untapped with promise, so large, diverse and complex.  Through the optimistic lens of youth, every building, field and figure seems to glow with hope.  Like birds, visions of an exciting future flit and dart through the window, flying from every town, village, footpath and field.  Everywhere is life and opportunity, things to do and places to visit.  For the first time, I am really alone with the world, free to make of it whatsoever I will.  

I am nudged from the daze by the confident but near unintelligible speech of the driver through a buzzy microphone announcing arrival.  The few passengers awkwardly shuffle and wrestle with unwieldy bags shoved on overhead rails, and a general disturbance of movement ripples throughout the carriages.  The preceding vision fades like a dream as the line slopes into an urban brick cutaway, five storey Victorian townhouses towering over either side. The rails sing and squeak as the train slows, bringing me back into reality, whilst the imposing train station begins to materialise.  Things eventually come to a stop.  The doors open with an agreeable beep and a whoosh.

I step off, fortified and calm, to face the unknown. 

[1] 60 tonne angel – a phrase I wish I’d written but in actual fact comes from the Porcupine Tree song ‘Trains’.