I Wonder if I Can Call it an Escape?

.... a little touch of self clarity ....

Hello…..

Hello, can anybody hear me?

I am standing here on the other side of this damned Freight Train. It is a Freight Train of Thought.

I have been waiting for it to pass me by, but it doesn’t seem to end. 

It is unbearably loud on this side. The Freight Train of Thought is screaming and screeching its way past in a heck of a commotion. I cannot understand anything in this cacophony of noise and motion.

Every so often I am offered a glimpse of the other side. Only when the Freight Train of Thought has no baggage on its carriage. Then I can see. The briefest moment of ….. well, I don’t even know how to describe it ….. Kind of like clarity over there. 

It doesn’t seem busy. It doesn’t seem hectic. 

Not at all like the Freight Train of Thought.

Ah, although I try I cannot make out much in the tiny glimpses. From what I do see though, I desire to be there, on the other side of this train line.

Why is there no end to this Freight Train of Thought? 

WHEN I WAS A KID I USED TO COUNT THE CARRIAGES ON FREIGHT TRAINS. ALWAYS IN AWE AT HOW THEY WERE SO LONG. THEY SEEMED TP GO ON FOREVER AND EVER.

OH - SORRY FOR SHOUTING BUT THIS DAMN FREIGHT TRAIN OF THOUGHT IS DROWNING OUT ALL SENSIBILITY FROM MY BODY, MIND AND SOUL.

I have been standing and observing this Freight Train of Thought for so long I have forgotten how long I have been here. The past seems far away and the future does not exist. It is just me and this damn Freight Train of Thought. 

I can no longer tell if is speeding up or slowing down. It’s all a blur. I am still here though, on the other side, observing each carriage of the Freight Train of Thought pass me by. 

You may think to yourself I say ‘Freight Train of Thought ‘ a lot. Well, you are not wrong there. But you must understand. The damn thing is incessant in each and every way! The noise, the erratic motion, the clatter, clatter, clatter along the tracks leading into goodness knows where. This Freight Train of Thought is making me crazy I tell you.

Right then. I have come to the conclusion there is no end to this Freight Train of Thought. I believe it flows on into infinity, going and going and going without a finish. I must accept there is no beginning and no end to it - for I did not bare witness to the Freight Train of Thought leaving the station. At some point, I joined in on the whirlwind of passing carriages. I became quite swept up by each them at first. Wondering what they contained, worrying about their passage, trying to identify with each, doubting their structure, ridiculing each one. For what I ask myself?

Why am I so concerned about this Freight Train of Thought? Why do I feel I am being held in bondage to it? Why am I allowing it to be master of my mind? 

Somehow I need to, in fact, it is imperative I start tuning out from the Freight Train of Thought.

I set my focus once more on the other side. 

Ah - Vast, open, light cascading from every direction - gone. 

The Freight Train of Thought is not going to release its hold so easily. I am smacked right in the head with a new vision of multi-coloured carriages. A distraction no less. Colours so bright I attempt  to look past only to chance another small glimpse of what lay on the other side. No. The more I try to place my vision beyond, on the other side, the less I see. I become dazzled by the brightness and confused at the increasing speed. 

I stop. Close my eyes. Shut out the world. 

The noise continues to filter into my everywhen. The continual hummmm from the Freight Train of Thought is consuming me and remains a confusing annoyance. 

I seal my eyes shut. Nothing of the outside can pry its way in. I begin to think.

You know I was staring outward at The Freight Train of Thought for such a long time, days, months, years even. Stuck in one place trying to figure out how I could look and perhaps even get myself to the other side. I forgot everything else.

I forgot the most important rule of all. 

I forgot to look inside. No, not inside the Freight Train of Thought. Heaven knows it traveled too fast to venture a peek in anyway. No, no inside of me.

Eyes remain closed. I exhale into eternity.

And then, I see it. 

A glimpse. A tiny, wee, fragmented, little baby glimpse. Within that glimpse was something familiar. 

It is not at all busy. It is not at all hectic.

Within a flash, it is gone. Something on the outside diverts my attention. Is it a horn, a warning bell?Trying to distract me again no doubt. I refuse to go back to the outside. Not yet, no. I let go of the horns and bells, listen to them go. Gone. 

I peer deeper inside myself. The further I look the more I see. It reminds me of a flower opening to greet and bask in the morning sun. 

Just like the Freight Train of Thought, everything inside me here is in constant motion, although it is a different kind of motion. There is nothing at all hectic, erratic or frantic about it. No. 

It is quite the opposite. 

A duck floating on a lake so still with the morning mist dissipating skyward.

A fresh dawn on a new day in a cloudless sky.

An icicle melting drop by drop after chilled winter months.

A gentle breeze caressing my face in the sun, the breath of earth waltzing its way around my features, continuing on, continuing on.

What has struck me here, is the serenity. There is no friction, no fighting, nothing grating up against anything. It is most unlike the clack, clack, rattle, rattle, boom, boom, ring, ring, chatter, chatter of the unrelenting barrage the Freight Train of Thought bought with it. No.

Everything in constant motion, all I see, hear, smell, feel is harmonised. An infinite expanse of serenity. An all encompassing warmth. An aroma of love. A lullaby laced in peace.

Welcome is how I feel. Although there is no fanfare for my arrival. I do however feel an embrace. Yes, it is an embrace from this state of, well it can only be called the everywhen. 

Buoyed along, carried, floating. 

As I hold my hands out in front of me to return the embrace of love I notice I have lost the vision of where my fingertips finish and where this expanse of everywhen begins. I laugh for ordinarily I suppose I should be worried about such a circumstance. But no. I feel no need to worry here. 

No longer do I feel any kind of separation, of body, of self, of mind.

I laugh again at the absurdity and now I cannot even remember what the absurdity is I should be laughing at. I feel complete. Ironically, the more complete I feel I know I have just become part of something bigger.  Complete as I am I am now just another tiny piece of constant motion. I am deep in pulsing through. 

Bursting with life and yet free from being shackled to the only thing I ever knew. 

The unrelenting, barrage, clackity, clack, clack Freight Train of Thought.

Author's Note

give it to me - hit me with ya best shot XX

Reviews

[Brinleigh Bailey]

I love the idea. It fits the mind so well; The freight train of thought. Going and going, on and on, loud and louder. Very well done.

[KWP]

Hey Brinleigh - cheers chick and thank you for reading - yeah the wee idea struck me and I was trying to articulate it xxx

[Rudi J.P. Lejaeghere]

The juxtaposition between the world, the outside frame with all the noise and the distractions that prevent us to look deep inside of ourselves, the other part of the juxtaposition of this picture. I like the metaphor of the train, KWP, always been mesmerized by these long noisy vehicles too. Very well done. :) Rudi

[R Smith]

my best shot huh! well actually i have to go along with you wholeheartedly i know that freight train so very well, we must be on the same track staring at the same bloody train but i do remember once a way back down the track, the couplings must have broken and the train separated into two and i just happened to be right there and dived headlong through the gap, i wish i could tell you where i went but its beyond the limitations of human speech and the thinking of human mind, all i can say is everywhere was 'white' no places, no buildings, no beings, i was floating in a sea of 'white' but the weirdest thing of all is that the white was not white because that would give it definition and i was in an undefinable place, a place that was not a place because that would give it definition and it had no such limitation, i'm trying to strip away all the defined logic we use to describe the indescribable how can i do that with only a human mind its impossible, the undefined state that was not a state i was in but not in is but is not the closest but nowhere near that, state that we call bliss but is nothing like that, ok Elizabeth i'm back in the room and you wrote one hell of a story there that takes us out of our selves into another reality, the true reality, now that you done that can you tell me what i just said.... 'PLEASE' love ya kid XXXXX

[jacob erin-cilberto]

reminds me of when i was a kid and was in such awe at the length of trains...i wanted a lionel train that was so long the back met the front.

thoughts are really like this sometimes..a clickety-clack...that seems to go on forever...love this piece...

at the beginning i was reminded of Pink Floyd's "is there anybody out there?"

our writing, as poets, is a constant motion, and i am not sure we are really the engineers...i think something else is driving the train.

[KWP]

hey Jacob - thanks for stopping - I always look forward to your feedback - and yeah my Uncle Jack drives the train, but only on Sundays and only when Miles has the day off. You know Miles don't you - he comes from way yo there in Alaska - been driving the big trains all his life - yeah well, when Miles is away on a Sunday my Uncle Jack drives and we only got to be hopin' that he didn't fill his belly with moonshine the night before XX

[ANTO]

KWP, this reminded me of Beckett's surreal Waiting for Godot.
Super imagery - great attention to details and the move to CAPS was inspired for shouting over the train noise. You described the scene so well I can feel the wind of the carriages as they whizz by.

"You may think to yourself I say ‘Freight Train of Thought ‘ a lot..." - so well done here - I love being addressed by the narrator in a piece - it feel so engaging if done right.

"A lullaby laced in peace." - beautiful.

A wonderful journey of self-discovery and self healing . You can call this write an escape - for the reader. Bravo!

[KWP]

There you go getting me to visit my good friend Mr Google again - Waiting for Godot - a play no less!

Thanks for reading Mr. You are a gem and I am happy you enjoyed - even with all this damn hub-bub and noise around all the time XX

[Jamestown]

Well written and delivered!
You really did a fantastic piece of work my friend,
BRAVO! Top to bottom thought provoking and intriguing,
I really got involved in the descriptions:)
Thanks for sharing and b-blessed!

[KWP]

Hey There JT - ooooh thank you sunshine for reading - yes yes this was bobbing around and I wanted to try and put it on paper - more as a lesson in articulation for myself if ya know what I mean. Also always something to fall back on later on when I so need XX