Spontaneity in The Lounge Car

I spent this evening singing softly. With newfound friends. On a ukulele a she-hippie did strum and I tapped a drum, homemade, sometimes brushing.

And our song rose and fell and reached its climax through meows and yelps and rolling tongues.

And there were no words, but the words were sung and some words were barely words at all.

And the melody drifted up and down a single arpeggio, inspired by a single string. With harmonies and rounds and reiterations bursting through spontaneity.

And Spontaneity. Randomly joining and listening and laughing. Feeling goosebumps as madness drifts to order and back again.

And its all music. Bringing us together in all that we have to share. Without names or stories or destinations we share. Music. Spontaneity. Travel and the Train.

And we've only been rolling a few hours. On this Iron Horse, the Empire Builder, crossing this majesty which is crumbling.

And we share our humanity. Whatever that is. Hard to define, but nonetheless lived out in our clamorous music. A strum, a chord, a rattle and a word coming together by chance on the train traveling through time and space, and the moon rocks with our song in the sky. And Ani keeps ringing in my head.

And we all crane our necks as la luna, she rises and casts here silver carpet upon the Columbia at twilight. And it falls to our feet. And we can step off this Empire Builder, through the empire and into worlds that have yet to be built and that are haphazardly built to some wild perfection and pass fluidly into some shared oblivion, like water into steam, which permeates the air and thickens the air and the community and condenses on the walls and runs down the walls and pools upon the mighty hooves of our iron horse. To fertilize and bring new life come the morrow.

And this is the train. And this is travel. And this is why I left and had to go back and will soon leave again.

And I write:

"Spokane. Take me as I am.

On this nostalgic car

Hurtling through a dark abyssive void,

going and coming and roaming and going

And moving, with no way of knowing.

And a girl strums softly on a ukulele.

And outside, in the window,

beyond my reflection,

there is only blackness.

And a line separating the lighter from the darker,

separating rolling hills from tree tufts.

And I watch the moon wandering in the window.

Back and forth, as right and left

its lunar wandering, meandering.

Whilst witness to this celestial dance,

soft conversation ebbs and peaks and murmers.

We fly back in time,

the moon following.

On this nostalgic car,

the train at night."

And I dream of a life on these tracks. In my own private car, living on the rails. Passing through city after city, meeting these travelers, munching nuts from foreign lands and digging it. Playing music and sharing. And sharing.

The Journey.