I’d boarded the train, and was seated in my roomette, Car 1433, Room 8. Though Wifi was advertised, please note that this was the suggestion of wifi, proving to be extremely spotty (hence the delay in this post). I had an idea that I’d listen to Pandora, but it quickly became clear that wouldn’t be happening. Hmmm. let’s see if I can save my drafts….
Saturday morning, I arrived early at Union Station with my new suitcase and backpack, enough time to get a cup of tea before boarding the train. When in Union Station I always feel like I’ve stepped back to the 40s, with the Deco chandeliers gleaming overhead, and the solid wooden upholstered benches corralled by brass stanchions burnished by time and heavy use.
I’m brandishing a new do, having gone to the Barber Punk’s, a loft salon that Chris turned me onto the day we walked around DTLA, and tried to take care of our own needs. I teased the Barber when I got my latest haircut that she’d cut my hair to Chris’ specs. She went in quick with the #2, before I could say, “Wait! I think I’m a #3!” As a result I look a little like “an escapee from Synanon” which was my Dad’s phrase when I did the #2 over my entire head one summer before I headed off to college. My niece, Niki, encouraged me to not ever forget my lipstick and earrings…. At Barber Punk’s, appropriate notes have been made to avoid this result next time, and since hair always grows back I’m not concerned.
The roomette was smaller than expected, based on my virtual tour of the Amtrak website, but of course, doh!, one only needs to imagine two roomettes that are the width of a train to realize what the reality would be. Spacious for one, I can imagine with two people and luggage it would be a challenge. The conductor was a little heavy on the horn, as we breezed through Simi Valley on our way north. The train was remarkably quiet, the ride smooth and soothing, the sun beaming in on the opposite seat, lighting up my bag of Christmas presents. Lighting up my anticipation of the next few days of travel and arrival.
Here’s the good news. Everything’s included in the ticket price for a Superliner roomette – all food, including dining car reservations made by the train attendant, who sported a shiny metallic Michael Kors purse when she came by to take the reservations for lunch and dinner. 12:15 and 6:30 were my choices, and I remain pleased with them. Especially in retrospect, when the full holiday capacity of the train delayed the later diners by hours. Some didn’t get fed. The dining car was behind me about six cars. Ricocheting off the walls as I walked through the cars, several of them festooned with Christmas lights, took me back to my train trips in Italy in my early twenties, and the disastrous and comic timing of our arrival in Pisa (our destination) when I was about four cars away from my luggage.
The view outside changed from urban industrial, outside Union Station, to Valley industrial (just a bit less graffiti), to the rocky outcroppings of Simi Valley, before we attained the ocean vistas near Santa Barbara. Nothing between us and the water but rolling banks of ice plants. (Forgive my horticultural inaccuracy – but it looked like ice plant to me….)
Traveling solo can be daunting. But on a train, it’s easier because you need to eat and eating is a community table activity. As they noted frequently over the loudspeaker, “if you are a party of under four you will be making a new friend.” At Day One lunch I sat with a young couple on their way to Portland for the holidays, and a woman about my age, on her way to Seattle, her son joining her on the train in San Francisco.
At the end of dessert, the awkwardness started to wear away and I introduced myself by name. Once I shared that I taught production in theatre at USC, the young man across from me, knuckles tatted and a trademark logo (R) behind his right ear, eagerly disclosed that he was a production manager for rock tours like Metallica and we discussed the complexities of the automation involved in these tours. Rather, he discussed them and I listened with interest.
Back in my roomette, with the darkness came the sense of isolation and loneliness that Elizabeth Harper Neeld addresses in her book on grieving. The emotional loneliness of missing the person you’ve shared everything with for fill-in-the-blank-years, and the societal loneliness of finding your place as a soloist in the world. as the light faded from behind the hills, I found myself dreading the trip to the dining room.
In fact, recently, I didn’t attend a party to which I had been invited and had accepted. I realized that it was the flying solo part that was too tough.
My grandfather once told us a self-deprecating story about how he’d wanted to learn how to fly and took lessons in a small single engine plane. The way I remember the story was that he was returning from his solo flight, and after landed the plane successfully, he stepped out of the cockpit, and right through the wing of the plane. That was the end of his flying career.
I didn’t want to do that at the party – step through the wing of the plane on my first solo flight. And so I didn’t go. On the train, my re-integration into the world was necessitated by my neatly planned appointments to eat. I met some fascinating people, two young animators (WB and Disney), a Metro LA employee and ferroequinologist (my word, not his). It was simple. We were defined by our destinations.
I’m getting off in Portland.
I’m going all the way to Seattle.
Our destinations precluded ever having to talk about my new status as a solo traveler, recent widow, griever, etc. No one on the train ever knew I was going through anything until I slipped with a kind woman traveling with her two sons, by mentioning I’d been reading a lot on the train, and she asked me what I was reading. Uh oh.
A book on grieving.
Fortunately, she didn’t follow up. I appreciated that.
This is where I’m at at seven weeks. Fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of facing the necessary steps to make myself whole again. Excitement about learning to fly solo.
The train trip was a chance to reflect. In between naps. After lunch Day 2, when I woke up from a nap, the rain which had earlier tear-streaked the windows outside had changed to snow, and the deep accumulation chilled the windows to my left. I felt snug inside, listening to classical music and typing furiously.
Yesterday it was placated a bit by their actual trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo, a quaint hillside dotted with small exhibits and a lot of parks and activities for kids. After getting our tickets (parking, entrance, attractions, train, small home equity loan) at the gate, we rushed to the top of the park to the Giraffe enclosure where we waited in line with about 50 fourth-grade summer campers for the moment when we would all get to feed the giraffe. Nana forged ahead to the top of the summit, to see what the excitement was about. One very patient but not-yet-sated giraffe stood at the bottom of a V-shaped ramp – the right side holding campers with handfuls of romaine lettuce, the left side their escape made, usually squealing after feeding the 
The early morning sunlight streamed into the living room, highlighting the carved mahogany legs of a table. A precocious orchid I had ignored, its stem lurching out to capture the sun, is now inside, granted access for its one louche bloom. I promise myself I will pay closer attention to the other orchids to guide them straighter in their fruition. These are the things we promise ourselves in the lazy lucky days of July.
Friday night’s rehearsal dinner came off beautifully. Bill Belair, the chef at 
was a small Christian-friendly church exactly one block north of our apartment on 71st St. Even though it was only one block from our apartment, we rented a black stretch limo to ferry us all to the church and the reception. To save money, we said we’d get home from the reception ourselves, which resulted in the easiest hailing of a taxi ever – bridal gown train draped over my arm.
And now we were sitting on the rooftop of the Peninsula hotel, ordering cholesterol-free frittatas, and trying to reassemble the missing chapters. At 56, the beginning of the book is a bit blurred for me. Like my experience when I put down a book for a long time, I sat reaching into the dark recesses of my memory as she updated me on some elementary school friends, telling me a little about their lives now – does commercial real-estate in Manhattan, keeps fit, etc, younger wife. We had both lost our moms, mine 19 years ago to lung cancer, hers 5 years ago. I can see Pixley’s mom so much in her face. A single mom when I knew Pixley as a child, raising two kids and doing so well at it. I’m sure that she, looking across the sun dappled patio, saw much of Shirley in my face as well. We talked about our eventual retirements, she longing for more travel and recreation time, more sun, and I asked her where she would like to travel. The far east – Bali, Thailand, Japan. She asked me where I would want to travel to, and all I could come up with was Tahoe, where my son and his fiancee and our granddaughter live.
I was being asked what specifically held me in Los Angeles. The implication in both his and Pixley’s questions:
She always has a smile on her face; she is one of our family’s biggest boosters. What am I saying? You already know her because she is the most frequent commenter on my blog. She gives me a target to aim for when I get to be 80.
