Memory Trains
Remembering the sounds of my childhood
Hello friends,
*This post was originally published in April 2023. We live in a world where everything is new all the time, but art should be revisited. So, whether you’ve read this before or are seeing it for the first time, I hope you enjoy it.
The neighborhood I grew up in sat near a railroad. There was no wrong side of the tracks. There was only a childhood desire to balance on the rails and to hop from one wooden beam to the next. Walking home from school as a kid, the tracks acted like a yellow brick road of sorts. Just follow the iron and wood, and you’ll get home eventually.
I only strayed from them when I reached the park, a small green oasis that felt like the middle of nowhere to my young imagination. Where the railroad bordered one side of my neighborhood, the park spread along another. Sometimes I delayed my return home and meandered into the shade of live oaks, pines, and cypress trees. Spanish moss hung from their limbs like dusty strands of silk. On the boardwalks of the trail, I could look down on a sea of soft ferns and sharp palmettos. Everything was green and brown and quiet unless, of course, a train passed through.
In my memory, a train came every day around five p.m., but I don’t know if that’s true. It was a freight line, so trains were constantly coming and going. But I remember evenings marked by shaking windows and blaring horns as golden light trickled into the house. Sometimes a train grumbled through in the dead of night, clacking and moaning in the distance. It never disturbed me, though, no more than the crashing thunder and pouring rain of a great storm. The clattering and screeching of that hulking metal beast as it lumbered through the dark became a lullaby. Somewhere in the night, someone else was awake, guiding that creature. At that moment, we inhabited the same space.
I spent a lot of time alone when I was younger. I should have guessed I’d be a solitary adult. That used to bother me, the idea that I might end up alone. Now, though, solitude is like a warm blanket, a place where I’m safe. I don’t need to explain myself to anyone. I don’t need to justify my existence. I can wrap myself up in my surroundings—the hum of the fish tank, the churning of the ice maker, the owl signaling the onset of dusk, the jet engines piercing the sky, the squirrels chittering in the trees, the crickets encompassing the night.
The sounds of trains growing and receding were the sounds of home. The clanging bell of the railroad crossing heralded the coming symphony. Sometimes I liked to run outside to get a glimpse of the passing steel slug as it heaved itself across the road. Mostly I just enjoyed listening as that rumbling coursed through the walls and into my bones. Hear me, the bone-humming called. We are the same. And then it was gone, and I was me again, and it was time for dinner.
Until next time,
Yardena
WEEKEND POTPOURRI:
Currently on repeat:
A poem:
CONVERSATION WITH IMMIGRATION OFFICER
By Ae Hee Lee
She looks at your papers. She asks your husband to step out. She asks you where your husband’s birthplace is. She is testing you. You answer: we were made in water in free-flowing salt water rich with plankton & we keep a fire in our lungs it burns white red in the center like a hibiscus you must know we are all manic you must know we are not ink more than pencil-point residue graphite ... She asks for the address of your current home. You clear your throat and fold your hands on your lap. Secretly, you imagine you have just met her in a train, on the way to some undecidedly beautiful place. we are living in this continent for now we had to leave paradise when we became of age a common ritual how about you? did you know this continent is but a well-rooted boat? did you know roots are easy to snap? The officer has a catalog of potential questions in her eyes. You are the last question mark inside that list. She asks if you have committed any crimes. i have lied before my memories & my world are always being devoured by bright lime groves but i am committed to lie with love to live i thought everyone committed lies & wants She asks what you had for breakfast. What your husband had for breakfast. You smile at what could have been a question asked by a friend. i pressed pearly remains of snow into my mouth drop drop drop ... i didn’t share he peeled & ate a secret he didn’t share either But the officer doesn’t smile back. She asks if you understand what she is saying. i don’t dream in languages only in prophecies & whale songs Your lawyer, sitting behind you, says everything is going to be all right. i believe stories become real when you hunger yes, yes, don’t words make you want to believe? But she isn’t smiling either. You shiver. The air conditioner is always too cold, too powerful in this country. see how inside my thorax minute icicles prickle and shake slightly at each hiccup no ... yes ... no ... The officer says you will hear from them in a couple of months. She asks you to leave. She asks your husband to step in. yes ...