Tuesday, January 21, 2014

There isn't a train I wouldn't take...

I just got back from a long weekend in Kansas City.  I took the same train (California Zephyr) that I took a year ago to visit family over Christmas, but this time I left from Lamy station instead of Albuquerque.  And I didn't have T texting me the whole way, watching the train's progress via webcam.  I was alone.

For the most part, that works for me.  I like travelling alone.


I settle in my seat, spread my stuff into surrounding areas and work on solitary pursuits like reading and knitting and crosswords.

If you travel with another person, you have the advantage of leaving your stuff in their custody when you go to the lounge car or the bathroom, but you also have to negotiate the seats:  window or aisle? And, when I flew with D, I always ended up in the middle seat. (I could see the dismay on the other travelers' faces when we came down the aisle:  "Please, don't let those porkers sit next to me!!!")

I did miss T's virtual presence, which didn't require seat negotiations and kept me company, but I was otherwise happy with my lot.  It's a beautiful ride, up north and east through Las Vegas and Raton, into Colorado along the old Santa Fe trail, and across Kansas during the dark hours, where the moon illuminates the prairie and the lights of empty towns and solitary farms flash by to the click of the rails and dopplering of train whistles.

The train parallels
The fabled Santa Fe trail;
A dusty dirt road.

I love train rides, but
They don't stop for photo ops.
Still, I do my best.


My knitting has progressed to the point where I can watch scenery while I work.  Right now I'm knitting baby booties for K:  her baby is due in March.  I actually have 4 projects going:  the booties, 2 belated Christmas presents, and the top I started after my knitting bag was stolen from my car last summer, along with an almost-completed year-long project.

Crafty car burglars
Steal my unfinished knitting.
It will not fit them.

(I'm still pissed about that.)

This is how I used to travel.  When I first moved out west, I took my violin, a trunk, a suitcase, and a daypack.  I spent a lot of time in the lounge car, and I still wonder what happened to Lane Turner, an 18-year-old who was en route to California.  We watched Wyoming go by, and I asked him how many people joked about his name (too many, but it's why I still remember it.)

When I traveled through Sweden with A, I was knitting a green sweater with a horizontal white stripe.  I think S has it?  I learned that a dollar bill is exactly 6 inches long, so I used that to measure my progress. Meanwhile, A read and got a kick out of the 10-year-old boy reading Animorphs:  he was so typical.

I remember my first European train trip, right after I graduated from college.  B and I each had a Eurail pass, and we spent a lot of time sleeping in the 6-person carriages.  I remember traveling through Switzerland, being kissed by a young Iranian with no English.  (He had the wrong idea.)  I remember that B had her tripod strapped across the top of her frame pack, and it stuck out just far enough that she had to wrestle it along the narrow aisles.  My in-frame pack was easier to manage on trains, but harder on the back for the long hauls to the hostels. I remember how great it was to pull out the seats and actually stretch out to sleep.  I remember climbing into an upper berth, the ceiling inches away.  I was shuddering with claustrophobia.  I remember the beautiful trip through Norway, from Oslo ferry to Bergen:  they stopped at the peak for pictures, and then we followed a silver-grey fjord to the coast.  But the seats were wooden and upright and on the way back we ran out of Norwegian Kroner and were starving until we reached the ferry buffet.  I remember taking the train out to Helsingor:  B traveled with Gastarbeiter in the smoking car, the air of which was literally blue.

I don't know about Europe, but in the U.S. you can no longer smoke on board, and that has hugely improved the trip.  I remember passing through the smoking cars to get to the lounge:  the fug clung to my hair and stuffed up my nose in just a few short seconds.  And the lounge car always had smoke on one level, which migrated to the other level.

There are other changes.  20 years after my first European trip, I took a train through England, Wales, and Scotland and discovered, to my dismay, that I could no longer leave my packs in the stations while I explored the cities.  Curse those terrorist bombers!  Because I was moving from mountains to coast to flat-lands to mountains again over the course of a month, I had two huge packs, loaded onto wheels.  They jounced along the cobbles, and I had to constantly monitor the upper pack, which had a tendency to fall off. I wheeled those packs through cathedrals, along narrow climbing streets, into crowded restaurants, and over the gap unto the trains.  I knew I was no longer a 20-something traveler when the lads with ear and nose piercings helped me with my bags and called me ma'am.  They had a vested interest in helping me - I was holding up the line - but I think they were raised right, too.

I'm trying to remember how many train rides I've taken.  While I rented a car through Australia, I also took the train down the Sunshine coast and up into the Blue Mountains.  Same with traveling through England and Ireland, Italy and France. There was always some point where I left companions and cars and made my way alone, on the train.  And, I often took the plane into Chicago, during Christmas, visited friends there, and then took the train down to my family.

Usually I travel coach, but I've discovered the beauty of the sleeper.  You can shower and stretch out, and your ticket includes the dining car meals and morning newspaper.  When I was traveling from Italy to France, I set aside 4000 lira to upgrade to a sleeper, but couldn't find it, so I had to sleep in a very crowded carriage.  I had this tendency to stash money in different bags and pockets so if I was robbed I had a fighting chance of saving some of it.  But then I'd forget where I'd put it.  I found the lira when I was unpacking back in the States and mailed it out to my friend A, who had hosted me in Rome and still had several months left on her Fullbright.  It was approximately $70 at that time, I think.

So, I've only experienced the sleeper once.  Back in early 2000, I took a package deal:  fly out to North Carolina to see my cousin's master's thesis (an art installation) and train back via DC (E and M), Chicago, family in downstate IL (N's high school graduation), and then along the Lewis and Clark trail back to PDX.  I traveled coach the first legs....somewhere between DC and Chicago they had to take a drunk off the train.  How cliche is that?  But it was an anomaly,  too.  Usually the folks on the train are socially acceptable. *

I had a sleeper for the last part of the trip, and if I had the money, that's what I'd do now.   I have discovered that, while my brain is still 22 in terms of planning and executing my trips, my body no longer bounces back as it once did.  My back does better now, but I just get exhausted.   It's time to be an adult:  lose the backpacks and travel in comfort.

In addition to logistical changes, I have also discovered that, without companions, I tend to not interact so much with my fellow travelers.  I don't know how much of that is due to the ever-present virtual communication, though.  As I pass through the carriages, everyone who is not sleeping is nose-deep into the electronics.  Even in the lounge car, people watch the scenery, earbuds insulating them from the conversations around them.

And I am guilty too.  I text with friends, post pix and haiku to Facebook, check my e-mail.  In the past, I journaled during the train rides.  I don't know which is better, to share as you go, or to introspect.  Years later, I'm still reading those journals.  Will I still be checking my Facebook entries?  Probably not.

Still, I find that travel is when I do my best thinking.  During that trip to NC, I was dating 2 men, and I didn't know that I wanted to date either of them.  I used the trip to escape them and figure myself out.  It didn't work:  they both phoned me incessantly, and I still remember lying in my berth, watching the moon rise over the snowy Dakota fields while I talked with K and told him I missed him, and then talked with D and told him I missed him too.  And it was true in both cases, but what I really missed was my self-respect and comfortable life.  I still miss those things.

*Addendum:
Shortly after I wrote this blog, one of the friends I visited in DC posted the following to Facebook. I guess my DC drunk was not such an anomaly after all:

E: "I am a Roman numeral carved in plastic," said the poet sitting next to me on the train.

M: I think I'd avoid that car next time.

E: No, he was pleasant and random.

C: Which numeral? V? C?
E: He was fixated on 7-11 and 6th and H. When I could make out what he was saying.

M: Well, at least that was better than sitting in a train on a NM/CO run, and having a fellow come up the aisle announcing to all that there was a bomb on the train. (About 4 years ago, as I recall.) I think we made record time to the next stop, at which the police were waiting for him. There was no bomb.....But he was certainly disconcerting to be around.

Refgoddess: M-, I've taken that route twice....you have all the fun!

M: You may call it fun. It was even worse for the people who had been in the club car...this nut case said he had heard a couple of guys say they had placed the bomb there and then they got off the train at, I think it was Trinidad...those folks were herded back to our cars.....I don't know if he was on something, or if he was schizo but ....well, it was an adventure. We made it to La Junta almost an hour early. No dawdling on that stretch!

Friday, January 10, 2014

Introverts

I was talking with an introvert friend the other day.  My understanding is that the term is all about where you get your energy:  from solitude or from other people.   Or, conversely, it's all about what drains your energy.

Is it possible to be  part introvert, part extrovert?  On my OkCupid profile, I claim to be a closet introvert.  Most people think of me as an extrovert, but years of working with the public drained my energy, and I needed vast amounts of alone time to replenish.  Now, however, I have all the alone time I could ask for, and I still seem to be fatigued, and I still want to hole up in my room.  I'm trying to figure out if it's a mental or physical issue.  

I am looking up
Symptoms of diabetes.
I have half of them.

We were talking about this because I'm very lonely, and I don't know what to do with that.  Yes, I know I've written about this a LOT, but it's still rearing its ugly head.  People don't have time for me and I feel rejected, but I can't blame them. I feel unattractive and unnecessary.  I don't want to force my unhappy self on other people, but I don't want to be alone either.  I have heard all my life that, to be attractive or lovable, you have to love yourself. I still don't know what that means.  It's almost like blaming the victim:  it's your own damn fault no one wants to be around you.  Well, gee, that makes me feel a whole lot better.  So....all I have to do is take my unlovable self and be confident that my unlovable self is really lovable?  How does that alchemy work?

So, I started thinking about personality traits. What is it about me that can be attractive?  What makes me want to get up in the morning and live in my skin?  How do I build self-confidence?  Is it something innate, or something that can be created?  And thus, back to the question of extroversion vs introversion.

One would think that confidence is part of being an extrovert, but lovability is clearly not restricted to the extroverts.  My friend is very lovable, after all.  And extroverts can just be annoying sometimes.  They seem to be all about self.  In fact,  I remember editing an article by an introvert customer service person.  It was illuminating:  the thesis was that you often provide better service if you are an introvert, because you take yourself out of the equation and really focus on the other person.  There is no bigger attractant than someone's undivided attention.

However, that doesn't seem to be the answer, either.  Here's what thesaurus.com has to say about introverts:
noun:  person who retreats mentally
  • wallflower
  • brooder
  • egoist
  • egotist
  • loner
  • narcissist
  • solitary
Wow.  How do you go from being solitary to being a narcissist?  I would never have thought an introvert was an egotist.  On the other hand, a brooder does have that tendency.

Quietly watching
Clouds rolling in, birds flitting.
Am I brooding?

Extroverts don't sound great, either, though:
noun:   sociable person  (okay, that's nice) but.....
  • character
  • exhibitionist
  • show-off
  • showboat
  • gregarious person
  • life of the party
There seem to be some similar traits in the two lists:  egotism and showing-off for example.  Both are exceedingly unattractive.  However, the synonyms certainly point out the bias in favor of extroverts.  I think most people would find a sociable person to be more attractive than one who retreats mentally.  And there just isn't much in the introvert list that you'd want to be around.

And now I think I understand my problem.  I AM an introvert.  I need to be solitary, to think (brood if you will), to figure things out.  And that is unattractive to a large part of our culture. So, my game face is that of an extrovert.  And that is unattractive to me.

It's time to turn my back on the whole thing and remember what my friend A said, in the aftermath of her divorce to a charismatic, arrogantly brilliant scholar.  The very things that attracted her to him were the things that made him unlivable, not to mention unlovable.  And she retreated to a Henry James quote:  "Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind."

And the kindness has to be to myself, as well.





Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Vagabond Consultant

A friend asked me how to pare down possessions. Voila! I am now considered an expert! Truly, all experiences are building blocks for the next adventure. And what a wild and wacky structure is this thing we call a life.

Perhaps I will become a Vagabond Consultant in my new life. However, this blueprint is free to my readers. Enjoy!

First, you must work on your mindset. Paring down possessions must be a thing of necessity. Moving several times is the easiest way to do it. Once things are in boxes they become invisible. And, once they have been in boxes for over 6 months, they become unnecessary. The trick is to put them in the boxes saying, "I don't need these right now." Then, DON'T OPEN THE BOX! 6 months later, you take the unopened box to Goodwill and walk away with your receipt.

If you are not moving, you may not have the impetus to box things up. In that case, you need to find something else to give that necessary shove. Whatever your motivation, it needs to feel urgent and imminent. Do you have a new career that requires an office space? Do you need the money that renting a room would generate? Is your mother coming to live with you? Are you going to live with her?

These would be positive ways to effect the change. Or at any rate, they are proactive responses to life events like retirement, aging, unemployment.   However, sometimes you just snap. You quit your job, you divorce your partner, you have a breakdown. (In my case, you do all three.)  In these cases, the temptation is to walk away. And that is a viable alternative. But most of us don't have what it takes to walk away from a life, which is what the possessions represent. Sooner or later, you'll need to deal with possessions as well as emotions.

All this is just to say, you need the motivation. Just feeling overwhelmed by "stuff" is not enough. For 10 years, I wanted to create a studio and de-clutter my life. But the motivation was not there. Other projects always took priority. There never seemed to be enough time, even after I was laid off. Also, some of the stuff was not mine. There was a powerful push-back from D, who has hoarding in his blood. He wanted to keep things and to acquire more.

So, the other thing you need to do is get stakeholders on board. You must motivate others as well as yourself.

Finally, once you've established the mindset and coerced or jettisoned recalcitrant partners, you need to accept a basic fact: this will all take a lot more time, energy, and determination than you expect. It's taken me 2 years to reach my current state of living in one small room, and I'm not done yet.

Herewith, my trajectory.

I was unable to pay the mortgage in my Portland house, so I decided to rent the upstairs. That meant removing 50% of our possessions. I had an estate sale and netted around $900, including the piano. I pulled out the stuff I wanted to keep and put it in one room and left town while the estate sale professional took care of the rest. There were some casualties, of course, and some under-priced things, but it was done.

A few months later I got a job and moved to ABQ. I boxed up the books. One box came with me, 2 more were to come with friends, and the rest were to go in the attic. I did the same with dishes, craft supplies, memorabilia, clothes, CDs, DVDs, art. Some came with me, most was boxed up. Furniture was either used by tenants or put in the studio/shed. It was both harder and easier than the estate sale. What was left was stuff I wanted to keep (hard), but I wasn't telling myself that it was going away for good (easy).

When I returned a year later, knowing that I was going to sell the house and remain in a small apartment in NM, I put most of the memorabilia in my aunt's garage, along with some family furniture (like the immigrant trunk and grandma's spinning wheel.) The dishes and art went into other friends' basements, and I mailed clothes and some memorabilia to myself. I did not open up the boxed books, but the rest I did, and that was agony.

Some friends took a few things. The books went to Goodwill. Some furniture is still sitting around the house, awaiting disposal.  And, of course, D had retrieved his boxes, which constituted a good half of the stuff.

I still have to deal with the stuff in basements. First, I must accept that I'm a vagabond. Then I will ask my friends to have a yard sale or bring my stuff to Goodwill or sell it on Craigslist. And I'll have my aunt send letters and journals and pix: a box a month. I'll scan them and then dispose of them.

It's a mind game process, for sure. But it's well worth it. I just spent the weekend in ABQ, in my old casita/studio apt. It felt so Zen, empty of all the stuff I had crammed into it. That's where I want to be, eventually. Possessions just make me tired.

Yes.  I am a vagabond.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The year in review

I went through my posts for the last year and picked a first line for each month. (There were no posts for July, probably because I was in Portland attending the Conclave, so I picked two for June.)
  1. I think the weather is bi-polar.
  2. Yesterday was full of contradictory emotions.
  3. Last night I dreamed I was at a class reunion. 
  4. A few weeks ago my landlady invited me to an "endings" ritual, to punctuate my divorce, to honor the feelings and the past, and to look to the future. 
  5. I spent the weekend at Ghost Ranch, hiking, meditating, reading, walking the labyrinth.
  6. On June 10, the forests will be closed.
  7. T has a theory about Bored Angels. 
  8. Last night I attended a performance of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, one of their four Albuquerque run-outs.
  9. Last night I was in my landlord's kitchen, scooping out chocolate ice cream.
  10. Today is my last day of government employment.
  11. I woke up in Albuquerque and drove home in the dawn. 
  12. I am so lucky.
Yes, that's what the year was like.