I traced my finger along the edge
of my train window, trying to focus on the glass instead of what it separated me
from. I had only one fellow passenger that
night, and the man who paced our train car had no one else to look at. His gaze felt heavy on me though, and I dropped my
eyes to the chipped paint on my fingernails.
The trees outside my window were
mostly birches, small and leafless in the winter. Their trunks seemed small as the train passed
them – too small to bear the burden of winter.
The pacing man flung himself into
the seat across the aisle from me when he heard approaching footsteps. Just in time; a second later a man walked
through the doors. His uniform spoke of
authority. He glanced at us briefly, but
hurried on his way.
The door closed behind the man in
uniform, leaving us in silence until the man across from me laughed. He laughed the kind of laugh a regretful man would,
if he were just told that he was dying of cancer.
“You know, I really thought you
cared.”
My eyes rose to meet his, but he
was looking out the window – speaking words not meant for me. I continued staring, careless of the fact
that it was impolite.
“I came all this way just hoping…”
he shook his head. “I guess that’s life
though, isn’t it? Just when you’re on
top, someone kicks you off.”
The man shook his head and stared
into the night outside his window.
Tears began falling then, and I let
them come. I cried for what I was
leaving behind, and I cried harder for where I was going.
There is no such thing as home – it
isn’t just one place. Home is anywhere
that you can share everything and still be accepted, home is anywhere that you are
loved. And I had no home.
Going through life without a home
isn’t so bad as long as you don’t have to travel alone. But the seat beside me was cold and empty.
My hand went back to the window and
I traced the smudges with my fingers. I
didn’t want to see outside if I meant I would see all the birches turn to palms
and the winter disappear. As long as you’re
in winter, that’s where I want to be.
But once you’re on the train, windows
are only there to remind you that you can’t go back.
Fiction, eh? What would Mr Goldfine say!
ReplyDeleteI don't know! Maybe something in the 3rd person. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's not only that he doesn't do and never did fiction, but nowadays he does nothing at all, former teacher that he is. His old life is rapidly receding in the rear view mirror.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I've been on the rocker on the porch for the past month like any decent retiree--no blackflies yet, but it has been a dite chilly out there!
What are you up to, other than fanciful train trips?
Perhaps his new life will be full of new books to write... but the rocker does sound lovely. Though I imagine the cold must be rather antagonistic!
ReplyDeleteLately I've been doing mostly a lot of writing and school. I'm taking classes online at the Gotham Writer's Workshop, and I've vowed to write one thousand words per day this year. I've missed a few days, but not many. I wrote a short story, and I've been planning out the rest of the novel I wrote in November. I also have a couple of other novels I want to write, but I'm trying to take them one at a time. Sort of.
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ReplyDeleteFor some reason that comment posted itself five times. So don't be paranoid - that's why there are so many deleted.
ReplyDeleteNow I see how you hit your 1000 words! You write 200 and then post them five times, 5x200=1000. Nice!
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ReplyDeleteThe Heroic Approach:
Anthony Trollope
Every day for years, Trollope reported in his “Autobiography,” he woke in darkness and wrote from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., with his watch in front of him. He required of himself two hundred and fifty words every quarter of an hour. If he finished one novel before eight-thirty, he took out a fresh piece of paper and started the next. The writing session was followed, for a long stretch of time, by a day job with the postal service. Plus, he said, he always hunted at least twice a week. Under this regimen, he produced forty-nine novels in thirty-five years. Having prospered so well, he urged his method on all writers: “Let their work be to them as is his common work to the common laborer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving,—as men have sat, or said that they have sat.”
The New Yorker, June 14, 2004
In his own words:
ReplyDeleteHow to Write 2,500 Words Before Breakfast Every Day
from An Autobiography, by Anthony Trollope
It was my practice to be at my table every morning at 5.30 A.M.; and it was also my practice to allow myself no mercy. An old groom, whose business it was to call me, and to whom I paid £5 a year extra for the duty, allowed himself no mercy. During all those years at Waltham Cross he was never once late with the coffee which it was his duty to bring me. I do not know that I ought not to feel that I owe more to him than to any one else for the success I have had. By beginning at that hour I could complete my literary work before I dressed for breakfast.
All those I think who have lived as literary men--working daily as literary labourers--will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. But then he should so have trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously during those three hours--so have tutored his mind that it shall not be necessary for him to sit nibbling his pen, and gazing at the wall before him, till he shall have found the words with which he wants to express his ideas. It had at this time become my custom--and it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient to myself--to write with my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went. But my three hours were not devoted entirely to writing. I always began my task by reading the work of the day before, an operation which would take me half an hour, and which consisted chiefly in weighing with my ear the sound of the words and phrases. I would strongly recommend this practice to all tyros in writing. That their work should be read after it has been written is a matter of course--that it should be read twice at least before it goes to the printers, I take to be a matter of course. But by reading what he has last written, just before he recommences his task, the writer will catch the tone and spirit of what he is then saying, and will avoid the fault of seeming to be unlike himself. This division of time allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year . . ..
I'm looking at the Gotham website--which courses or classes are you taking? Faculty look good--most with MFAs, some publications.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/91W.php
ReplyDeleteAre you trying this? You've got a poetic turn that might work in something this tight.
That is a heroic approach! Perhaps someday if I decide to get up early.... :) But more seriously, I'd love to try this habit out, and perhaps I will.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking the Creative Writing 101 course from the Gotham site. It's good so far - it's encouraging, and I love having assignments. I also have a Short Story class starting up at the end of Feb, (that one's in Bangor) which should be interesting.
I hadn't seen that contest, but I will definitely give it a try. Thanks for pointing it out!