Title : Monday Memories -- Train Rides Past, Train Rides to Come. . .
link : Monday Memories -- Train Rides Past, Train Rides to Come. . .
Monday Memories -- Train Rides Past, Train Rides to Come. . .
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions about my upcoming trip to Edinburgh. After I leave that city, I have a day of train travel to my next destination and then, a few days later, another long day on trains before I get to my final stop before flying home.
And with all that solo train travel ahead, I thought perhaps I might share a journal entry from this past January. On the train from Chambéry-Challes-Les-Eaux (where I'd overnighted after taking the train from Rome ) from Paris, I decided to record what I saw through the train window -- (something like the wonderful accordion-sketchbook Shari Blaukopf painted of her train ride from Montreal to Toronto) -- instead of continually snapping photos on my iPhone.
Note that I've got the date as "January 9, 2017" -- in fact, I continued this through 'til January 11th, when the journal ends, and if the month's entries hadn't been preceded by those for December 2017, I'd surely be wondering someday if I'd mistaken the year of this trip, and if it really had taken place in 2017 rather than 2018. . .
Anyway, here's the transcription, after my little sketch, drawn in red ink by fingers stiff with January cold. . .
Waiting for the train to Paris at Chambéry - Challes-Les-Eaux (10:24 it will leave)
And minutes later, speeding out of the station past arrangements of sturdy houses with snow-shedding rooves, enveloped by neat lawns and vegetable plots, mostly dormant for the moment.
And the conductor just by to scan my e-ticket. And I look out the window to see twin waterfalls leaping down the slope to my right.
Mountain slopes ornamented by lively waterfalls
Valleys that open out a rough green, pasturage delineated by rows and copses of winter-bare trees.
A low-lying mist and then wreathing the mountaintops, a heavier cloud cover that the sun pierces occasionally to dramatic effect
Chickens in a back yard
Sturdy homes arranged pleasingly around a spire, working their way down the hillside, cohesive in materials, simple, functional architecture.
A horse below, solitary, in a field.
Meadows, lawns, grass look rough, patchy in their winter state and in the treed areas, the ground is rust-soggy with fallen leaves.
Piles of firewood stacked neatly, metres and metres and metres of it.
And even inside the train, the smell of cows, ensilage, manure. . . .
The book I keep putting down to take photos, to record my impressions here, is Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet -- She's already, in the first pages, sent me to find Andrew Marvell's "annihilating all that's made / to a green thought in a green shade" [edited to add: I Googled this at the time, found it in Marvell's "The Garden."]
And then her comment about her "strange yellow knitted hat from Ireland" -- that "it's amazing what passing the half-century mark does to free one to be eccentric."
And magical light on the stretched-out gentle slopes of pasturage, rolling in different directions so the sun creates a rich chiaroscura.
What river/stream flows beside us now? No, false alarm -- simply ended a long narrow body of water that flowed out between adjoining copses but then was drained in the meadow/lowland.
Interruption from l'Engle, about 10 pages into her first chapter, an argument about timidity as a form of pride. She says, "The moment that humility becomes self-conscious, it becomes hubris. One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time. Therefore, the act of creating . . . is a humble act? . . . Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else."
While I remember taking photos through the window from that train, I seem to have purged them all from my archives -- so that instead of a photo record of the journey, I have only the words written in my journal pages -- they conjure for me images every bit as powerful, it turns out, as what the photos might have. And I like having the words I was reading included; I love the way my meeting with L'Engle is mixed into my memory of that train ride. . . .
And thinking again about Humility and Hubris. . .
All on a Monday morning.
And now the mic's all yours -- comments?
And with all that solo train travel ahead, I thought perhaps I might share a journal entry from this past January. On the train from Chambéry-Challes-Les-Eaux (where I'd overnighted after taking the train from Rome ) from Paris, I decided to record what I saw through the train window -- (something like the wonderful accordion-sketchbook Shari Blaukopf painted of her train ride from Montreal to Toronto) -- instead of continually snapping photos on my iPhone.
Note that I've got the date as "January 9, 2017" -- in fact, I continued this through 'til January 11th, when the journal ends, and if the month's entries hadn't been preceded by those for December 2017, I'd surely be wondering someday if I'd mistaken the year of this trip, and if it really had taken place in 2017 rather than 2018. . .
Anyway, here's the transcription, after my little sketch, drawn in red ink by fingers stiff with January cold. . .
Waiting for the train to Paris at Chambéry - Challes-Les-Eaux (10:24 it will leave)
And minutes later, speeding out of the station past arrangements of sturdy houses with snow-shedding rooves, enveloped by neat lawns and vegetable plots, mostly dormant for the moment.
And the conductor just by to scan my e-ticket. And I look out the window to see twin waterfalls leaping down the slope to my right.
Mountain slopes ornamented by lively waterfalls
Valleys that open out a rough green, pasturage delineated by rows and copses of winter-bare trees.
A low-lying mist and then wreathing the mountaintops, a heavier cloud cover that the sun pierces occasionally to dramatic effect
Chickens in a back yard
Sturdy homes arranged pleasingly around a spire, working their way down the hillside, cohesive in materials, simple, functional architecture.
A horse below, solitary, in a field.
Meadows, lawns, grass look rough, patchy in their winter state and in the treed areas, the ground is rust-soggy with fallen leaves.
Piles of firewood stacked neatly, metres and metres and metres of it.
And even inside the train, the smell of cows, ensilage, manure. . . .
The book I keep putting down to take photos, to record my impressions here, is Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet -- She's already, in the first pages, sent me to find Andrew Marvell's "annihilating all that's made / to a green thought in a green shade" [edited to add: I Googled this at the time, found it in Marvell's "The Garden."]
And then her comment about her "strange yellow knitted hat from Ireland" -- that "it's amazing what passing the half-century mark does to free one to be eccentric."
And magical light on the stretched-out gentle slopes of pasturage, rolling in different directions so the sun creates a rich chiaroscura.
What river/stream flows beside us now? No, false alarm -- simply ended a long narrow body of water that flowed out between adjoining copses but then was drained in the meadow/lowland.
Interruption from l'Engle, about 10 pages into her first chapter, an argument about timidity as a form of pride. She says, "The moment that humility becomes self-conscious, it becomes hubris. One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time. Therefore, the act of creating . . . is a humble act? . . . Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else."
While I remember taking photos through the window from that train, I seem to have purged them all from my archives -- so that instead of a photo record of the journey, I have only the words written in my journal pages -- they conjure for me images every bit as powerful, it turns out, as what the photos might have. And I like having the words I was reading included; I love the way my meeting with L'Engle is mixed into my memory of that train ride. . . .
And thinking again about Humility and Hubris. . .
All on a Monday morning.
And now the mic's all yours -- comments?
Thus articles Monday Memories -- Train Rides Past, Train Rides to Come. . .
that is all articles Monday Memories -- Train Rides Past, Train Rides to Come. . . This time, hopefully can provide benefits to you all. Okay, see you in another article post.
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