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Trainspotting

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	Trainspotting, February 2000 by Alison van Diggelen I used to waste three hours a day commuting between Cambridge and London. Frequent delays made me grumpy and I developed a severe dislike for trainspotters. I wanted to prod them with my all leather brief case and tell them to get a life. Why would anyone want to stand on a drafty platform, in the rain, to scribble in their notebooks? I’d sneer at their sensible brown shoes and gnome like jackets. If someone had said, “That’ll be you one day,” I’d have told them to take a hike, or worse, get the slow train to Land’s End. Now, ten years later, I have changed my outlook. My two preschoolers taught me about the wonder of trains. Yet, it wasn’t a sudden conversion, like being dazzled by the light of a Caltrain locomotive. My defenses were breached by a box wrapped in cherry red Christmas paper: my son, Lewis’ first Brio train set. We spent hours laying the tracks, the overs and unders, the loops and the tunnels, while baby Tanera gummed on Thomas the tank engine. Soon after, my dear friend, Annie, started visiting by train from San Francisco. On a misty winter morning we stood at Diridon Station in San Jose, watching the train emerge from the distant curve like a glistening serpent. The clanging bell grew louder and a white light danced back and forth along the track from the engineer’s cabin. Lewis stood firm as the colossal mass of metal loomed over us, the crescendo of engine noise and screeching breaks blotting out awareness of anything else in the world. Lewis’ body shuddered and I felt wildly alive. Meeting Annie in the maelstrom of people, luggage and bicycles felt such a celebration, we hugged as though she’d come across the continent. Next time, en route to Diridon, I knew my defenses were crumbling. My heart started racing when I spied the lightrail and positively soared when I saw a Caltrain going over the bridge above us. “Look guys do you see what I see?” At the station, we stood, counting in awed whispers, as a multicolored freight train rumbled by. Santa Fe/Rio Grande emblazoned on the freight car sides fired my imagination. Images of scorching deserts, tall saguaros and dusty sombreros warmed my mind. When Annie’s train rounded the bend, we were getting stiff with cold. The train slowed and two small things flew down from the engineer’s cabin. A big gloved hand waved as the train passed. Lewis ran to find two metal railroad crossing pins on the platform. He held them out to me, eyes wide. Lewis delighted at this magical gift from his hero and I was profoundly moved at this gesture of kindness, from a stranger. That bounty marked the turning point. Henceforth, we always came early. One afternoon a flashy blue train came into the station. We stood on the platform watching passengers yawn, stretch, and light cigarettes. I was impressed to hear that they’d been traveling since early morning from Seattle. Two whole states away. Unfortunately my fascination received a setback. Annie got a boyfriend with a car, and now arrives, much less frequently, in a ho-hum Honda. I haven’t been to the station in months and there’s something missing in my life. Maybe life isn’t so glamorous right now, but its stasis has allowed me to go on an inner journey of expanding horizons and possibilities where enchantment can be found in the most unexpected places I find myself reflecting on how far my opinions changed in ten years. I’m no longer the executive, urgent to succeed and quick to judge. Trainspotters are more likely to get a cup of coffee from me than a scowl. I’ve lost some of the fundamentalist beliefs I cherished, about what’s weird and normal, wrong or right. Perhaps life is a series of shattered illusions of “how things are”. The changes in my convictions can be both liberating and disquieting. I wonder what the next ten years will bring, a garden blossoming with English gnomes? Well, anything but the pink flamingos. © siliconmom