On a Train

Trains are quiet, if you are lucky enough to sit in a car that is mostly empty with people who like to mind their own business. Most of the time you can barely even feel the tracks that fly by underneath you. Their sound is heightened only when someone opens the doors leading to the space connecting the car to another. The apparent silence is almost intoxicating to me - I can feel my thoughts jumping around, but they are not stuck in what ever it is that worries me at home, it makes me feel better.

I spend a lot of time on a train when I can tear myself away from my university life and my exhaustion. It’s when I go visit my father, who lives almost across the country. I used to despise it, the traveling. Seven hours is a long time to sit still even if you have books or a paper and a pen with you. In the end, all you have is your thoughts, which tend to start lingering on the subject of your numb ass after an hour of sitting. But I like to think I have found a certain balance to this. I am writing this as I am sitting on a train, two hours into the journey. Yes, my butt is numb, but I don’t feel too dismayed about it. Maybe a bit. But I’m focusing on other things on the side.

When you go on a train across the country, you end up seeing quite a bit of Finland in one sitting. Most of what I see is familiar to me - they look like the kind of landscape I’m used to. Small towns with wooden churches that are clearly visible all the way to the train station, fields after fields, pine forests, birch trees. Then there are the old run down houses, built to the model of the houses the government once provided the nation’s soldiers, returning from war. I find that no matter where you go, you see those exact same houses, and they do have the tendency to bore me. Sometimes they even annoy me as I see their worn down facades and yards, overpowered by unkempt flora during the summer. But sometimes I see a bit of history. I wonder if they are inhabited when they seem so worn out, I wonder who takes care of them - or who neglects them. I wonder how it came to this.

During the winter, everything is covered by a thick layer of blinding white snow. Unkempt yards become hidden and the fields look more like white oceans, dotted with islands of forests. I want to go for a swim. But then my mind goes back to my numb ass and the fact that the seat table in this particular seat can’t fit all the way down without cutting into my stomach. I don't know if it's broken or if they really expect people to be so skinny and short. *Twiddles with the table* God damn table, making it harder for me to internet...

Here, have a song that has the word train in it: