One day, I'm gonna fall in love on a train.
I already sorta do. All the time. I'll be pulling into Union Square and the way that blond wistfully twirls the straw raising up from her smoothie, will seem familiar - a subtle revelation of a both calm and playful approach to the mundane of day to day. She'll remind me of someone I've never met. Someone that I will, one day, try so hard to forget. Someone, that in-between those times will seem so right; so connected; so easy. Then, the doors open and she melts out into the wider world, whilst I stay onboard for one stop more. Love gone.
But that's not what I'm talking about about. I mean really fall in love. With The One. With A One. With Anyone. It may be someone I've known for decades, or a complete stranger I have just set my eyes upon for the very first time. It may be someone I've been dating for months, but was just going through the motions. It may be someone that I've been weighing up telling that I've just 'all of the sudden' fallen for. It may be someone who been there for me the whole time, but I just realised now. It may be that blond with the straw that I just noticed or the repressed, accountant with the pile of folders and papers or the raven haired beauty with the Graphic Novel. It's not important who it will be. No, that's not right. Of course it's important who it's gonna be. I mean, this is the one who is going to wash pain, clean rejection, stimulate desire and tell all those unwanted truths. No. Of course it's important who it is exactly. It's just that I'm so convinced that this explosion of love will happen - on a train - that, despite having no idea of who it will be with, or even when, in no way, deters the resolute belief that it will happen. Who it exactly will be with, is not important to the eventuality, but is so very important to the reason and the destiny.
It will happen.
It's got nothing to do with the poetry of it. I'm not projecting and far more lyrical destiny than reality, in actuality, always delivers. I'm not trying to escape into an imagined future that pans out like some sort of Wim Wenders road movie, ambling it's way through the desserts of Montana. It's because I understand myself so precisely - because I appreciate the illogic that is my passions - that I can predict with such conviction.
I love Movement. There's so much to love about Movement. Depending on a particular state of mind I'm in, combined with the direction my emotional currents are flowing, Movement will appeal to me for more of some reasons than others. At the moment, the thing I love most about Movement is courage. It takes courage to move. Not to runaway, but to maintain or instigate Movement. It's fear and weakness that motivates a runaway, but The Movement I speak of, encompasses and even requires a love and respect for where you began your Journey from. Your not leaving or departing from a home, but arriving and descending upon another. This takes courage. There's an unknown, an inexperienced, and the Movement Girl, the one on that train, is backing her own self-belief that she'll do just fine. In fact, probably do even better. Courageous.
That particular brand of courage, will and is all I'm looking for. All I'm looking for in someone to fall in love with anyway. I don't want to be entirely surrounded by too much courage. I don't go for extremes and that would be too extreme. But I want the first face i see every morning, to really wake me up. Force me to face the day. Really face the day. Courage is the brew I most like served in the mornings.
Back home, back where my journey started, I know, or knew, some of the bravest folk on this planet. A few of them, even owned or worked in cafes and served breakfast. How great. I'd stumble out of bed, wash my face, slick a bit of product through my hair (I had lots of hair and even more hair-product back then), turn up the Levon Helm on my iPod and ramble into one of these cafes. Sometimes I'd be loud, boisterous and obnoxious and other times silent, jaded and obnoxious. It didn't matter which state I was in, for their Courage always brought me back to the center - to equilibrium - and their scrambled eggs or baked pumpkin loaves or sweet ricotta spreads, filled me with a sensory, more physical pleasure. Every day, without fail, I'd start my day this way. It was great. It was the purest, most personal and silently effective method of daily motivation.
It was the other day, as the sun first started beating through again upon The City, that I pinned for one of these cafes. Oh, St. Kilda, how I miss thee. Not all the time, but just when I need a dose of courage and properly cooked eggs. I need your courage right now. Not to hold. Just to borrow.
Of course I can't bring these cafes with me everywhere I roam. I could just move back to St. Kilda, but that would be, well, lacking in courage. So instead, the way my life always works out just fine, (and it always does) leads me to believe in a Train Love Story. One about a girl that has the courage to differentiate Movement from Running Away. The courage to face herself. The courage to ride trains. The courage smile at fate. The courage to face loss before all is lost. The courage to say no. The courage to say yes. The courage to hear no. The courage to call you an arsehole. The courage send honest texts. The courage to write drunken letters. The courage to take your picture. The courage to hang your picture. The courage move the wedding at the last second. The courage call for divorce. The courage to find the sun. The courage to walk in the rain. The courage break out. The courage to move. The courage to Move.
