train of possibility

Growing up, I lived in a turn-of-the-century four square house. We were three blocks from a bustling highway and five blocks from train tracks that fed the steel mills.  We didn’t have air conditioning, and on warm summer nights with the windows open, I could hear the hum of the highway and the clickety-clack of full speed trains. It wasn’t loud, just the mumbling of a city.

As a little girl, I’d sit in my room listening to the possibility. I knew the cars on the highway were going somewhere, but I’d been in a car. That kind of travel usually didn’t yield adventure.

But trains… they sounded like they had purpose, direction, and urgency. Even though I felt misunderstood, stuck, limited by childhood, when I heard those trains I felt hope was real, like there were bigger things in the world worth running toward. Despite a deep, quiet fear that the train would leave me behind, I held on to the comfort and hope of those sounds until the day I stepped into adulthood.

Now, I live ten blocks from trains. Once again, on warm nights I can hear the them offering possibility.

Today as I listened, I sat where I was, feeling grounded. Fear melted away. I didn’t feel the urgency to run. I wasn’t trying to escape the present to get to the future. I just sat in solitude and silence, letting the sound of the train move past me. I was content, feeling the hopefulness direction and purpose can bring.

It occurred to me that the train isn’t there to take me to the future. It doesn’t hoard possibility waiting for me to run fast enough to jump on board. Instead, the train delivers opportunities that make sense in the moment. It’s up to me to learn how to sit, to recognize, and to choose from those opportunities.

So, that’s what I did.

I sat quietly, listening to my choices while the train carried me toward my future.