Spring Bloodroot Moon
Sitting in E-1 departure gate, looking at the planes snugged up in their bays with the jetways stuck onto their sides like remora. The day is bright, sunlight streaming down, the sun’s angle higher, spring-like. The temperature though is January.
I missed Mark and Mary on the Skype call. Looked for you guys and didn’t see you online. I’ll pick you up later.
On the Northstar rail I sat with two kids, school age, who got off at the Coon Rapids station. Never occurred to me that it was a school bus as well as a ride to work. Makes sense.
Riding on commuter rail, then light rail, in your own town, is a different experience from using the same services in other cities. There’s none of that residual anxiety. Where am I? Is this my stop? Did I miss my stop? Even the warehouses are familiar.
There is though a certain tinge of strangeness, of alien experience in a known land. We’re not accustomed to whizzing past buildings on rails. Some of us are by now, of course. Regular riders of the Hiawatha Line and Northstar.
Still, most of us, including me, have this transportation most often in faraway places: Chicago, New York, Washington, London, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo. That creates the odd sense of being on a mode of transport familiar in foreign climes, not home, while at home.
The rail cost, $6.50, compares to $100.00 for taxi or around $50 for a shared ride. Probably takes about the same amount of time. It also let Kate drop me off at 7:05, then return home and have breakfast only 10 minutes later. Slick.
It feels good to on the road again. Travel came with the bloodline and it sings a happy tune in transit. After passing through security.
