Along the Hudson river

Trip Start Feb 24, 2005

Trip End Jul 06, 2005

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Flag of United States Saratoga Springs, New York
Friday, June 3, 2005

It is loud here. My senses are overwhelmed by the ability to understand all the language around me, the cell phone chatter, the television, the radio, the conversations of strangers nearby. I read every billboard and contemplate its meaning. I had become used to understanding only one person at a time, a slow focus, intentional communication.
After a long bath, legs shaved, deep sleep in clean sheets of a hotel I could only afford because they reimbursed my airline ticket, I meandered to Penn Station and find myself on another train. Along the Hudson River we go, clackity-clack. Cottonwood seeds blow by my window like snow. New york City, Albany, Saratoga Springs. Tiny boats out on the water. Tiny children waving at the train as we go by.
As we go north the graffiti becomes less skillfully rendered. Those city kids know how to paint, turning train yards and empty factory buildings into works of art. Now, heading upstate, the graffiti is just spraypaint, territorial pissings, no beauty.
I feel a strange sense of yearning. I try to blame it on an empty stomache. But it is a different emptiness, an anxiousness. I feel impatient for the first time in months, like I am not just traveling, I am Going Somewhere.
I may feel apprehensive, but I also feel happy. The trees are so green, the train whistle blows ceaselessly, announcing our journey to the passing landscape. The leaves wave, "Hello, hello, we hear you, you're here!" The sky has become a quiet gray. It muffles the whistle of the train, and lays over us like a quilt, comforting me. Against this gray backdrop I watch a childs toy plane twist and turn and dive. Where is the child with his remote control? I scan the hillsides but see no one. I watch the toy plane dance until it disappears behind us.

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