November 5, 2010
Planes, trains, and automobiles. And a bike and a bus here and there. It has been a full vacation of transportation in several ways: Visiting my cousins, I have been transported back to my childhood; doing readings for the week in Chicago, I was transported to other worlds; and winding down my trip, I am now transported back to Chicago to catch my plane to Albuquerque.
Getting back to the big city will be nice, having a full day to do any sightseeing I didn’t get in last week. Ironically, I was staying last week with my friend at her condo that is right along the lakefront, overlooking the surrounding park and ocean-like water, and never made it any closer to the water than that!! (Funny, I realized this in doing a tarot card reading for myself, which I rarely do. But I’m in the dining car of the train, and got a cool diner-style booth with a big old table, and have been wanting to read my cards, so it’s perfect. And now I have the desktop table for typing. It’s all so divine!)
So today, my mission is to get to the lake. Or at least the Chicago river, which is down by Union Station where I’ll detrain.
Three hours from Lincoln (Illinois) to Chicago, and lots to see along the way. Barns, woods, old trucks, backyards, cemeteries, farmhouses, fields, and silos. Birdhouses, orchards, warehouses, roadways, church steeples, and playgrounds. It’s really great being in a different part of the country from where I live. It’s REALLY flat around here - you can see for miles across a field or down a railroad track!
A couple of times back in the 70’s, I took long train trips; one time, Amtrak ran a major sale - $33 per section, the US being divided into three sections. As I lived in Tallahassee at the time, I was in the Eastern third, so paid a whopping $99 and traveled for almost a month around the US, stopping everywhere I knew someone. I’d mapped out an itinerary which included nearly everyone I knew, and some I knew but hadn’t met (lots of relatives!). It was great! The trains were oftentimes nearly empty, so there’d be 2 or 3 of us to a car. On one trip from DC to NY, the other person in my car was about my age, way interesting, talkative, and in for the long haul just like I was. We became instant, fast friends.
OH, this is so funny! I haven’t thought about this for a while! We got to be such good friends, that we wound up on another train trip together some time later (two years, maybe? Details are hazy………..), and we stopped along the way to see his sister in……………..CHICAGO! I have a picture of us standing on a bridge over the river somewhere downtown. Wow. The more I write and think back, I have been in Chicago a bunch of times!!!! As my dad is a giant Cubs fan, and had family outside of Chicago, we visited the Windy City in my childhood a couple of times, I stopped there at least once on my Amtrak adventures, as a travel agent, I went with our agency for a “fam” trip in the 80’s, and about 7 years ago, stayed with a new friend (I’d met him through a buddy in Tucson the month before I was to go there; he offered his humble apartment for the one night I’d be there, and it was so fun! We drove in the rain to a dive bar to read at a poetry reading which never happened, so we went back to his home, fixed hot tea, and read poetry there. Wow. Those special moments that touch us the deepest, that are on the heels of dashed ‘plans’ and expectations! Thank you, God! J ) who also gave me a stellar tour of Oak Park and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings (which have fascinated me for decades…..). What a delight he was. I think it’s time to call him. OK, I’m thinking out loud here..
On that same trip, I met for an early dinner with two of the women I’d met on my trip to Egypt a few years before. SO!!! I see now that I seem to return again and again to Chicago. The next time I return, I want to spend more time along the lake, and attend some theatre. The theatre district there is spectacular!!!
On the Amtrak trip in 70 something, I stopped in probably 10 states, visiting everyone from my sister in New York, a couple of college apartment mates in Connecticut, and my step mom’s sister and her family in Minnesota, to a ninth- grade girlfriend in Oregon, and a slew of friends and family all over California. Ah, youth! J In spite of loving all the scenery along the way, I was often lulled to sleep by the sway of the train and the shirr of the wheels on the track. One trip was 23 hours long, and as I recall, I slept about 20 of those! Traveling does take a toll on me, no matter how young or old I am. (Hopefully, if I can keep traveling, I’ll be eternally young! J )
Indeed, that is something that has struck me soundly this trip - I need ‘down’ time after, and even when, traveling. Changing planes, sleeping and eating habits, environments, and time zones overloads my circuits, and though I’d like to think (and pretend) that I can take it all in and go right along with every activity all the time, I NEED the alone time and sleep that helps me get back into the present with balance, enthusiasm, and health.
(whew! That was a long sentence!) When I got to my cousin’s house after a full week in Chicago of walking, freezing, riding buses, taxis, and trains, being around a lot of new people, giving readings, and working at a higher vibration than normal, I was FRIED. Had no time to process everything before diving into a new scene. Since I didn’t realize or recognize (or probably, acknowledge) this, I was feeling (and acting!) impatient, antisocial, cranky, and mopey for two days before I crashed. My cousin refers to it as my meltdown. HA! If she only knew what a real meltdown is! J
Turns out, once I talked it out, that I was processing a lot from the past few weeks back in Albuquerque, as well as everything else. So God bless her for being there, letting me melt, come into where I was, where they were, to enjoy the rest of the time in appreciation and enjoyment. They were great. I was treated like a queen. Her husband, a hearty carnivore, upon noticing the overflowing vegetable drawers in his fridge (gotten for me and my quirky vegetarian/vegan habits….), grumbled, “It looks like a damned produce department in here!” Cracked me up.
I believe we’re nearing Chicago. More later. Blessings, Maria
