Friday, August 11, 2023

Five Minute Friday :: Leave

union station los angeles train tracks
Departure platform and train tracks at Union Station, Los Angeles

Five Minute Friday :: Leave Linkup

"Leave" is another prompt that can go in more directions than the conveyances we board to take leave. And hey, remember, we get only approximately five minutes to have our say. Our host Kate wrote beautifully about leaving her late mother behind and leaving her daughter at school—decades apart. What's in my heart?

Leave evokes a location or situation we depart for an already scheduled new one or maybe trusting God's Providence on the next venture because the current one no longer holds substance or promise. I've tried, I've cried, I've hoped, I've petitioned heaven. I've done everything possible to change myself and to view the context from a different perspective. It's all no go.

There are lyrical and literary traditions of taking leave temporarily or forever of places, of persons, of pasts. What vehicle carries us away from here to landing there? I can't place its silhouette, but I identify with Kate's airplane illustration. Planes are a frequent option, as are passenger cars, city buses, interstate buses, and, of course, trains. Back in the greater Boston area I took more than a few dozen commuter rail trips. I've sort of enjoyed a couple of longish roundtrip Amtrak journeys, and the ocean view stretch of Pacific Surfliner between San Diego and Los Angeles approaches the definition of magical. BTW, my footer image above Kate's is a tiled bench overlooking the Pacific outside the San Diego Santa Fe train station.

The passenger train long has been the American icon of adventure and departure. An icon of romance between persons, romance between a person and a place. There are elaborately embroidered legends and documented histories about trains.

But why am I fantasizing about leaving and trains? Because I'm seriously considering taking leave of where I am on a train, on a plane, a passenger car, an intercity bus. And why? Because I want to arrive at that next place.
# # #

tiles outside santa few train depot in Sn Diego
five minute friday leave
five minute friday icon

No comments:

Post a Comment

thanks for visiting—peace and hope to all of us!