The Train Diaries, Day One

The sun wakes up Spokane

I’m trying to get my writing mojo back, and figured I’d write about my current train trip.  

The station in Everett is gorgeous, with a painted grand piano and other art installations.  While it’s not as fancy as King Street or Chicago, it still gives you the feeling that you’re stepping into an Edna Ferber novel, but with a mix of people who wouldn’t appear in Edna’s books.  The family – 2 young parents – mom, a skinny, tattooed woman in cutoff shorts and a midi shirt (is that what you call a shirt that reveals your navel piercing?), dad who looked unremarkable, two adorable, feisty children, and young grandparents.  All were white except grandpa, who was black, and seemed to be the children’s favorite.  I decided this because the kids spent their time climbing on him, telling jokes and stories, and begging for his stories.  The parents left the waiting area a few times to drive to the store, leaving  grandpa behind with the kids, remarking, “Why do they keep going to the store? Doesn’t that seem strange?”  Each time, they returned with a greeting card-sized plastic bag.
At the other end of the row of seats was an Amish couple – man in a polyester black suit,  and woman in a dress, stockings, and bonnet, using cell phones and drinking iced lattes, sipped through plastic straws.  It seems funny that people who eschew  zippers have an iPhone 16, but I’m not super familiar with the religion.  And what we do know is that religions can be pretty confusing.  See Pete Hegseth.

There were a bunch of other people whom I got to see in close detail, because the train was 4 hours late. Every half hour or so, the nice train station lady would come out from behind the counter and say, “It looks like the train is running late, it will be here in half an hour.”  Always half an hour.  One time she was correct, and the train arrived a little after 10 pm. 

About 15 minutes before we got on the train, I got an e-mail from Amtrak saying that my sleeper room had been canceled and I’d been reassigned to coach for my trip from Everett to Chicago.  I wish I had gone to the store 4 times like the young couple with kids, because I would have procured some provisions, like a pillow, blanket, and food.  Instead, I just have two cumbersome, heavy satchels full of art supplies, journals, 3 knitting projects, and too many pairs of socks.  Count them: three watercolor kits.  To be fair, one is a super tiny (like, two side-by-side postage stamps) one is an altoid tin kit that I fashioned with air-dry clay, and the third is regular.   As if on this three day trip I’m going to develop wonderful creative habits where all I do is wear socks and make stuff.
I was super irritated upon the news of my sleeper car cancellation.  I’m not for sitting up for three days.  Horizontal is one of my very favorite positions.  I had imagined this trip to be: when upright, creating.  When not creating, horizontal.  It was hard to switch gears to:  when upright, sitting in a cramped seat next to someone, with all of my supplies in an overhead bin, and eating not the food from the dining car (that comes with a room), but from the snack bar.  You know snack bar food: jumbo sized candy bars, gummy worms, microwave burgers, and chips.  Nachos with cheez whiz.  
I called the number on the e-mail, and pleaded, but the voice on the other end just said, “The car that your room was in has a bad smell.  It’s closed.”  

We did that thing where we were both quiet, me hoping it would be a power move.  She may have been scrolling on Instagram, who knows.  When my silence didn’t give me the upper hand, I broke it.  “So, will there be a car added in Spokane with a sleeper?” 
“Nope,” she said.  

I put my phone down and walked across the gorgeous terrazo floor with an inlaid map of the Snohomish River Delta, to the nice “the train will be here in half an hour” lady.  When I told her my situation (privileged white lady who has to ride coach, gasp!), she showed the proper amount of empathy.  

I asked a nearby mother-daughter couple if they were in the same plight.  They weren’t.  I went back to my spot to sulk just a little bit.   Anyway, a few minutes later, the mother, a suspected Sunday school teacher in her late 70’s, came over and spoke conspiratorially.  “I have an idea,” she said.  “I always bring my own pillow, and usually there’s an extra blanket in the room.  So I can sneak a pillow and blanket to you in coach.”  It was such an impractical kindness that I was completely touched and almost got over myself.  This woman didn’t look like a rule breaker, but here she was, plotting to smuggle bedding to me.  I declined – the train is a quarter of a mile long, and even finding one another would be tough, not to mention what, jail time or something if she were caught?
And then, miracle number two:  just as I was about to board, “the train will be here in an hour” lady trotted over and handed me a new ticket.  “I got you a sleeper from Spokane on. I had to call all over.”  (Suddenly, this has turned from a long ramble into a post with a plot! Bad things, good things, miracles!)

And one final miracle for day 1. I was in my coach seat, kind of cold and uncomfortable.  The AC was turned up high, which is good for sleeping but not if you’re sitting up wearing shorts and a tank top.  I was wide awake at 3 am with a neck cramp and aching hip, counting down the hours until horizontal could be mine, when a woman, just a random passenger, tiptoed down the aisle,  and whispered, “Honey, are you cold?”

“Um, a little bit.”

She leaned over and handed me a plastic water bottle that she had filled in the bathroom with hot water.  “Here you go,” she said, and disappeared down the aisle.
Ok, there are your three miracles for the first 12 hours of this trip.