Train Ride

I love taking the train. I used to take it to work sometimes before they moved our department to this building, because the station was close to work and there was a shuttle bus that dropped us off right across the street.

When we moved here, I checked the closest train station for a shuttle, but there weren't any, so I've been driving ever since. But last week somebody told me there's a shuttle that picks people up from the next station beyond work and brings them to the front of our building. So I tried it this morning.

For half of the trip, the train goes close to the ocean, so I sit on the top level on the west side by a window. As we head out of town, a Jeep on the freeway next to us pulls ahead, but by the time the freeway and the tracks diverge, we've caught up to the Jeep and are passing it. The Jeep is probably doing at least 80.

We reach the coast, low cliffs on one side of the train and sand on the other. The sun still hasn't cleared the cliffs, so the low, breaking waves are still in shadow. Behind them, a couple white buoys catch sunlight, and here and there the sun peeks over the cliffs, highlighting the breaking foam for just a moment before the wave slides up the sand.

A flock of sooty seagulls--immatures--hang out together as teenagers tend to do. Tiny sanderlings chase the edge of the water up and down the slope of the wet beach. A whimbrel pokes its long beak deep into the sand, while two wetsuit-clad surfers float on their boards waiting for the bigger waves that give no sign of coming. A couple strolls down the beach. A jogger passes them from the other direction, keeping to the harder damp sand.

The images are visual, the ocean stretching smoothly out to the horizon, the sand showing that high tide passed not too long before. But there's no sound that carries into the train. I hear the blowing of air conditioning, the metallic bounce of the train's suspension as we pass over uneven parts of the rails, the rustle of newspapers, and the muffled voice of the conductor announcing the next station.

Two worlds separated by glass. And by the demands of life.

But without the train, I never know the other world is even there.