Time and Circumstance

                                             Time and Circumstance

    “How long are we supposed to wait?” He anxiously whispers over my shoulder.

    “We’ve only been here for twenty minutes,” I whisper my response without turning to see to whom I’m speaking. 

“You know how trains are. Any number of things can go wrong and cause delays. I remember one time sitting for 10 hours waiting for the tracks to be cleared; a snowstorm in North Dakota. This is a landslide in Montana, at the top of the Continental Divide, it was unforeseen and unpreventable.  There is no place to go and nothing to do, so we just wait for as long as it takes.”

    “So, there’s nothing we can do?”

    “I just told you, there is nothing to do. We are miles from a train station, the rock is as big as the engine, and unlike the movies, there is apparently no Super Man on board. So we sit and look out the window into the darkness. Nothing else to see but our reflected image looking out the window at the imagined beauty that surrounds us.”

    #

    It’s a strange feeling when you realize that you are literally at the mercy of whatever comes next. I realize sitting here at the mercy of my situation, that things that provide me with a sense of comfort are the very things I hate. Lights! Street lights, house lights, store lights, all make it impossible to see the stars; light pollution influencing my ability to wish. And noise! Sirens, car horns, people yelling and screaming, garbage trucks at 2AM, neighbors arguing, but on this mountain not a sound that isn’t coming from within this train car. I realize that so much of what surrounds me are the very essence of my environment. There is nothing I can do about it except stop traveling by train, or move to a place in the woods like Thoreau’s cabin, far from the maddening crowds.

    Leaving what you know is difficult; moving to what you don’t know is even more difficult, and also frightening. I suspect it is the reason people stay where they are, because no matter how bad things are, they can be worse somewhere else. 

    I went to school in the heart of a city eclipsed by a skyline that overshadowed everything and everyone. The city suffered from its share of both gentrification and abandonment; buildings going up, while others were coming down to make room for progress. Many of the stores that once touted prosperity have fallen on hard times. Windows covered with yellowing newspapers hiding the empty contents within. A river divides the high-rise buildings from the two-story businesses that have separate entrances to the rooms and apartments above them. As businesses fled to the suburbs in search of a prosperity that had been suggested would follow, the unused entrances of the buildings became homes to those who could no longer function in the world I have come to accept.

    Winter temperatures often reach twenty degrees below zero, and the summers mercury often exceeds the 100-degree threshold. Somehow, those who survive the extreme weather accept the deadly conditions as we accept the noise and lights, which have become an intrinsic part of the dome over our personal universe, where we are encouraged to reach for the stars, while they are being kept hidden. All of us tolerate what we perceive to be our hell on earth, and yet I have never considered leaving in search of greener pastures and star-studded skies.

   As I sit looking at my reflection in the window I realize that taking comfort from familiar spaces and those that occupy them is the history of the world. Thousands leave what stability remains, for a chance at a more opportunist piece of life, no matter the risk. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country left the South for the North, thousands more left rural areas for the cities, lured by the promise of jobs, and if not a better environment, a more financially stable one; people and morality swept aside to accommodate survival. 

    Immigrants, like my grandparents, settled into neighborhoods with those of similar circumstance and background. Immigrants found safety and support amongst those that shared not only the history of the place they were from, but the culture as well. Throughout history, for various reasons, war, famine, lack of opportunity, people left what was familiar, risking everything for a chance at a better life. Each wave of immigrants found themselves disadvantaged compared to the immigrants who had arrived before them. It appears every emerging ethnic group is asked to pay its dues.   

    I always wondered about the lack of empathy displayed by those of second and third generation immigrants who had seemingly forgotten the difficult times in adjusting to a new environment, and take an adverse pleasure in making new arrivals as uncomfortable as possible. Perhaps the experience, although traumatic, encourages us to forget the misery endured by forgetting it exists. 

    As I look out the window I see nothing but the invisibility that night provides. I realize that in order to survive we all accept darkness for what it is, the absence of light. Despair is not an option; it allows the darkness to become more intrenched, therefore our only alternative is to pretend it doesn’t exist, or it finds us congratulating ourselves for having survived the worst life has to offer.

    “How long do you think we’ve been sittin here?” The nearly inaudible voice again seeking escape from the unpredictability of our situation.

    “Does it matter? There is nowhere to go, so you might just as well relax, find an innocuous something to do to pass the time.”

    “Why do you think I’m talking to you?” 

    It wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but he has a point. Distraction is often our best answer to a question we understand, but wish we did not.

    #

    The conductor just informed us that a crew was making its way up the pass from Butte and would arrive shortly. I know his declaration was meant to relieve our anxiety, but it seemed only to worsen the mounting tension; the sentiments expressed by the passengers seems to be growing more indignant.

    When our plans are disrupted it changes not only our present situation, but alters our future. We suffer from a ripple effect that touches not only our desires, but those that are to share our experience. Our normal inclination is to become, agitated, angry, look for someone to blame as our expectations have been needlessly interrupted. 

    While others contemplate rage and acts of retribution, it occurs to me that had the train been on time, we could have easily been in the path of the 20 ton bolder that now rests on the track. Had it not been for a delay in Billings due to a fueling mishap, we could have been at the bottom of the ravine we follow toward Seattle.

    Luck is perceived to be something we believe only befalls others. Rarely do we see that our lives are founded on time and circumstance, which we refuse to accept because it has more to do with our inadequacy to alter the circumstance, than our ability to manage our situation in an environment that has existed long before us, and will continue long afterward. There is no one to blame, fault is not negotiable. Because we believe that we have no control over our situation, does not make it so. 

    I’m not implying that we sit back and take what is offered without question, but looking for someone or something to blame, is often the result of having given into the impotence we share with a universe that could care less about who or where we are. Perhaps a boulders on the track, a car wreck, a bounced check, or a frightened person behind you, only random events, not a conspiracy intended to keep us from reaching our desired objective. We are at the mercy of time and circumstance, and must learn to live with the consequences, or we will drive ourselves, as well as others, to insanity.

    The impatient man behind me just fell onto the floor of the coach. He appears not to be alive; his eyes are fixed on the ceiling above, despite the noise and light. My first impulse is to do something, although I don’t know what I can do. My expertise in resuscitation, if there was any, has long since abandoned the pretense that I am capable of saving anyone, including myself.

#

    False alarm. It appears he tripped in his haste to evacuate the coach; it has been rumored that another landslide is likely. I watch as the train car empties; faces contort in terror; bodies push and shove one another as though it is possible to outrun time and circumstance. I do not mean to infer we should do nothing when it comes to our, or others safety, but running into the darkness flanked by a steep ravine does not advocate for the best solution to a perceived problem. Sometimes I think it is better to do nothing than respond to the enticement and comfort of fear. 

    I find I’m the only one left in the car. The conductor nods his head as he passes, not looking surprised, but rather euphoric as he contemplates the last twenty years of his service to rail travelers and how little circumstance and people have changed.

    “Time and circumstance,” I say as I nod in response to his acknowledgement of me. He smiles as the car door wooshes open allowing the darkness to enter and accompany me to the snack bar.