Seoul Reflections

The second week of June, movers arrived at my Seoul apartment and packed up all my material goods minus my summer travel impedimenta. Now the bulk of my current accumulation of chattel roosts in shipping containers while in transit from Seoul to Okinawa. The most recent tracking message received stated that those containers left Busan last week. Meanwhile, I departed Seoul on June 17 and presently reside with my summer travel impedimenta--first in Hawaii and now in Utah.

After living almost five years in Seoul, I will certainly carry forever onward Seoul's imprint on my own soul. Here now are some bits and pieces included in that imprint.

In all honesty, though, a few facets locked into this Seoul imprint I will not miss, so I shall declare them first and be done with them:

1. Air quality issues. How much fault belongs to China's catastrophic air pollution woes  and the prevailing weather patterns and how much solely to Korea's own issues, I will not debate. Suffice it to say that air quality too often can be problematic. (Check out this website.)
2. Winter. Even if I've lived all my life so far in lands with a winter season, Korea takes first place in the MISERABLE category for its multiple weeks of bone-chilling cold with no reprieve whatsoever. When you watch Mash reruns and those characters bemoan the cold, they speak the truth! Ice resulting from a measly inch or two of snow can last for six weeks.
   
3. Spitting. In Korea people spit their sputum onto the sidewalk and streets regularly. I cringe whenever I hear someone cough or clear his/her (yes, females do this, too, especially ones from older generations) throat because almost inevitably the sound of spittle launching will follow. YUCK!

With the negativity now concluded, let me share a glimpse of the Seoul glow I hold within. I will miss so many things!

• My apartment. I loved my apartment. It was my haven.

• My neighborhood, Huam Dong. It has its own street market proffering all manner of goods from shops, stands, the back of trucks, even curbside: fresh fruits and vegetables, spices and red pepper paste, fish (fresh or dried), baked goods, breakfast or lunch or dinner from pots and on sticks, electronics, clothing, even small pieces of furniture. An array of "mom and pop" restaurants within its turf include fare ranging from Korean barbecue to pizza to take-out Thai (YUM!) and Vietnamese (pho is now my comfort food of choice).

• Taking the subway to church on Sunday.

• Crossing the Han River by subway. Because the church is located on the other side of the river from where I lived, I always crossed the Han River on Sunday commutes. Because I took the Sunday commute pretty much weekly, I eventually achieved successful subway snoozer status (one who can snooze but awaken to disembark at the correct station), yet I could not allow snoozing during the river crossing; the crossing became my touchstone moment or something, and I had to witness it fully.

• Opening a refrigerator at church and being assaulted by the pungent aroma of kimchi. Where  else can that ever happen?!

• Walking to and from work. Unless it was too wet or too cold or I planned a morning run on post before school or I had too much to carry, I enjoyed commuting to and from work by foot. Two to three times a week became the pattern. My last month in my apartment I ended up walking everywhere or else taking a subway or a cab because I sold my car the day after I listed it for sale--in other words, much more quickly than anticipated!

• My students. No where else have I taught students where so many of them have internalized both the desire to learn and the determination to pursue excellence in what they create and produce.

• "Beauty" shops, the ones catering to personal vanity and presenting even more than one has ever imagined needing or using to be more beautiful--skin care, hair, make-up, etc. They are everywhere, even in the underground passageways of the subway. I especially enjoy the freebies tendered with even the smallest purchase. My personal favorites are Skin Food and Face Shop, but there are surely a dozen more franchises from which to choose. And, from what I understand, Korean beauty products are becoming big sellers in the USA.

• Spring. Korea does it with exquisite loveliness.
  

• Autumn. Korea does it with exquisite loveliness.
  

• Ginkgo...especially in autumn. The leaf totally enchants me--a tiny golden fan suspended on a branch or embellishing a car windshield or gilding the sidewalk.

• Robert, my taxi man. In Seoul I actually had Robert's name in my phone contacts, and he had me listed in his! When I called or sent a text, he could always address me by name before I identified myself. After the first time he delivered me to my apartment, he never required directions again to pick me up there. He spoke wonderful English and enjoyed talking culture, politics, religion, whatever. I have kept his number because if I show up in Seoul again to visit, I have a taxi driver at the ready!

• The car wash man at the commissary. On his bike he rides onto post with a bucket, cloths, and brushes. Enlist his service before one enters the commissary, and when one returns to the car with groceries in tow--voila, clean car. By the end of my sojourn in Seoul, he knew me and my car well. The last time he washed my car, he did it on his own volition. He recognized my car in the parking lot and washed it while I was inside the commissary without me even being aware that he was there that day. Because my car had been quite dirty (Seoul has dirty precipitation--air quality issues, remember), I noticed immediately that it was clean. Momentarily confused, I then spotted the car wash man about to leave the parking lot at the far exit. I was able to catch him and offer him payment, but he smiled and shook his head no. At that moment, I didn't realize that it would also be the last time for the car to be washed while I owned it. Still, such a sweet ending.

• My cleaning lady. I have never before had a cleaning lady. Somehow she came with the rent; I never paid her up front. How marvelous to never have to clean a shower comprised of tile and glass and yet have it remain in pristine condition.

• Mr. Joe, the car insurance man. "If you have a situation or an accident, call me first, then the MPs!" I never had to call him for anything more than a dead battery when I returned from summer break, and then he sent a mechanic on a motorcycle right to my car in the underground parking garage of my apartment building.

• My landlord and the security man at my apartment building. Traditionally Korean men have a rather dictatorial reputation. How true that still is, I don't know, but I do know that both of those men took excellent care of me and my needs in that apartment for almost five years. Neither spoke much English at all, I speak very little Korean, and so we communicated with smiles, gestures, and a translating intermediary if more lengthy spoken communication was necessary. I think they were one of God's gifts to me.

Myanmar and Theravada Buddhism

Despite being grievously cumbered with visits to Buddhist temples my first two days in Myanmar--first in Yangon and then in Bagan--I was still moved by the very real devotion of so many people in Myanmar to their Buddhist faith. (Seriously, dear tour designer, for non-devotees, a guided tour of two different Buddhist temples in one day is plenty; four in one day is mind-numbing, and ten in two days--no matter how small a temple might be--is a mini hell whatever someone's religious persuasion might be!) Almost ninety percent of Myanmar's population practices Theravada Buddhism, and that practice informs the way each day unfolds and, as with religion in general, influences architecture and art. Western civilization tends to connote Buddhism with peace and acceptance, but when any religion is used to sanctify social, political and/or economic power wrangling, it is never holy. Sadly, some in Myanmar have done and still do just that, attempting to cloak or justify evil acts with false connections to Buddhism. However, I am not celebrating them. I am celebrating all of those I observed or met or had the chance to share a time and space where our lives overlapped.

Religions through the ages have always had an impact on the arts: what to create and what to treasure. The lay of the land in Myanmar is shaped and designed by Buddhism.

In Yangon, Shwedagon.

In Bagan.

In Mandalay we visited a Buddhist monastery--a Mandalay highlight for me, by the way--and arrived just as the novices and monks were gathering for their noon-day meal. Monks eat only twice a day: very early in the morning and just before noon. They do not partake of any more food after noon. All their food is donated and prepared by others who, as part of their devotion, provide substance, time, and service to the monks. In Myanmar, all male Buddhists are expected to spend a certain period of time as a monk. At age eighteen, a male can choose to become a monk for life. Our guide in Mandalay confessed that when his family sent him to the monastery to serve his time as a monk at the age of eight, he only lasted a week. He was just too hungry! For him, only two meals failed to constitute a suitable living arrangement.

Monks wear wine-colored robes; nuns wear pink and orange. Both monks and nuns shave their heads. Visible everywhere, monks and nuns participate in the daily rituals and routines of everyday life in an integral way. For me it was both beautiful and humbling to watch.

Myanmar on My Mind

During the winter holiday season, I explored Myanmar. “Where is that?” so many people have asked. I reply with another question, “Burma? Do you know where Burma is?” Sometimes that helps and sometimes not, but let's commence with the rather contentious controversy of an official name for this country.

From my online research, I believe this article sums up the matter rather succinctly, and I quote a portion of it here:

The name 'Burma' derives from the ethnic Burman (or Bamar) majority and, following local custom, was adopted by the British colonialists in the 19th century. Yet the more formal indigenous name 'Myanmar' has been used for titles, in literature and on official documents for centuries.  The English language version of the 1947 constitution, prepared the year before the country regained its independence, referred to the 'Union of Burma', while the Burmese language version used the name ‘Myanmar'  

The name Myanmar was accepted by the UN and most other countries. Some governments, however, notably the US and UK, chose not to do so. These countries wanted to show support for Burma's opposition movement, which clung to the old name as a protest against the military regime. The opposition felt that the country's name could only be decided by the people.

The new name was also controversial at another level. 'Myanmar' can be traced back to the pre-colonial period when successive kings ruled the central lowlands of Burma and periodically clashed with the states and societies around them. It implies the continuing political dominance of the major ethnic group living within the geographical boundaries inherited from the British in 1948. This is anathema to many among the country's ethnic minorities. 

To some, the use of either 'Burma' or 'Myanmar' represented a political position.

From the responses of guides and a few others I asked while in-country, Myanmar is preferred because “it is the traditional name for our country,” and Burma is the colonial name established by an outside entity—one militarily, economically, and politically potent at the time. Although the full history and implications of the controversy of Myanmar vs. Burma are more complicated, I shall continue to refer to this nation as Myanmar.

A land of rich diversity--environmentally and ethnically--with a turbulently storied history, Myanmar feels rather magical at this particular moment. Perhaps the tenuous nature of its current time space enhances the aura of hope and possibility floating just above the ash and dust of a land repeatedly plundered by others hungry for its natural resources and/or the trappings of power and luxury. In behalf of Myanmar, I now find myself in a mother-mode of sorts--cheering, worrying, encouraging, reprimanding, and praying. 

People and the lay of the land create the majority of the images and memories I carry with me forever after. At times, food also ranks.  Myanmar achieved all three of these. From Yangon, to  Bagan, to the Ayarwaddy River, to Mandalay, to Ngwe saung, the movie in my mind plays an amazing array of frames.

Yangon

Bagan

Ayarwaddy River

Ngwe Saung

Mandalay

Road to Rangoon: Health Matters

My two trips to sub-Sahara Africa in the nineties introduced and initiated into the issues and practices for health maintenance and disease prevention while traveling abroad, and for a little over a decade I kept current a rather exotic shot record:

• yellow fever (feels like an injection of "sting juice"--perhaps a characteristic of a "live virus" shot)
• typhoid (makes the arm a bit sore for a day or two)
• hepatitis A
• hepatitis B
• hepatitis C (probably not necessary but I have it)
• polio booster

I also became more mindful of maintaining relevant not-so-exotic inoculations like these:

• tetanus-diptheria-pertussis
• flu

There are some others that often appear on the recommended list of shots before travel, but I have never had a doctor suggest them for me yet:

• rabies
• Japanese encephalitis
• measles-mumps-rubella
• chickenpox (However, I've had shingles twice--once on a trip in Thailand! My primary care doctor does intend to have me get the shingles vaccine as soon as I am old enough that my insurance will pay for it. Apparently, it is an expensive one.)

On the other hand, malaria and dengue fever--rather pervasive in many areas of interest to me in both Africa and Asia--have no preventive vaccines developed to date. Lamentably, where these two diseases are concerned, there is no easier/better living through chemistry yet.  Instead, one must employ due diligence to prevent mosquitoes from supping on one's blood--repellent, clothing choices, and mosquito nets. Granted, in the case of malaria, certain drugs used to treat the disease have proven effective in limiting one's susceptibility to the disease when taken in smaller doses as a preventive measure. The strain(s) of malaria in the area visited determines which drug(s) to take as a prophylactic. I have taken different drugs for malaria prevention, and my body rebels in some measure to all of them.  Nothing of too dire a nature as of yet--although that one doctor wanted me to take a pregnancy test after my return from my second trip to Africa because "all your symptoms indicate you're pregnant"--but malarial prophylactics and I share no bonhomie! In fact, I heave a major sigh of contentment when my research on a potential travel destination includes "little to no malaria risk" in the health information section.

And dengue fever? Yeah, well,...all due diligence is all there is!

For the last ten years or so, I have updated nothing on the shot record, regular flu shots and tetanus-diptheria-pertussis updates not withstanding. I think I have incurred only one prescription for malaria medication in that timeframe as well. Somehow I have kinda-sorta believed a trip to Myanmar could unfold without a hitch in my slide into first-world medical "slackdom." Yes, the travel literature for Myanmar strongly suggested a viable typhoid inoculation (necessary every three years) and urged a serious discussion with a travel doctor about the need for malaria medication. But, I argued with myself, I have friends who lived through a trip to Myanmar without any health preventatives at all except due diligence.  And I studied the map showing malaria risk in Myanmar. I studied it multiple times. Yangon and Mandalay showed no malaria risk. Yes! Both will be major stops on the travel itinerary. Yangon and Mandalay...and that is all of Myanmar that shows no risk.

My friend Tammy went to a travel doctor in Germany. I went to a travel doctor in Seoul. Now we each are freshly inoculated for typhoid, and we each are in possession of malaria medication. SIGH--and not of contentment--for the malaria medication.

But hey, Myanmar, we will come all healthy-like, and--best case scenario--we will remain all healthy-like!


ADDENDUM.  While perusing Myanmar travel sites online today, I read this:  "Myanmar has one of the highest incidences of death from snakebite in the world. Watch your step in brush, forest, and grasses." Alas, another SIGH! But I will not contemplate this factoid any further until such a time as I may tread in Myanmar's brush, forest, and grasses.

Road to Rangoon

Yes, I am fully aware there is no Rangoon any more except in history and memory. The correct place name is Yangon. "Rangoon" hearkens to the era of British colonialism and most likely came from the British imitation of the articulation of  "Yangon" as spoken in the Rakhine dialect of Burmese.   Yet I still prefer the musicality of pronunciation for "Rangoon." (See previous post.) Ask me in 2015 if I continue to hold this preference after traipsing the byways of said city in the flesh, for I currently have a flight in place scheduled to arrive at Yangon International Airport on December 21. My anticipation quickens.

However, the road to Rangoon is a bit bumpy compared to many other roads I have traveled previously.  Perchance the wait--as in twelve years--for the possibility of travel into Myanmar to become feasible constitutes the biggest bump.  I certainly do hope so, especially now that the wait is virtually at an end. Another bump--though certainly not as big--tourist travel to Myanmar has surged ahead of available tourist infrastructures, apparently, so the market principle of supply and demand has accommodations pricier than will probably be the case in a year or so when the boom in current construction reaches completion. Hence, Myanmar does not classify as a cheap Asian destination...at the moment.  It has been, and it will probably be less expensive in a year or two.  

But here in space and time as October begins its downhill run into November, my friend Tammy and I have flights to Myanmar and a tour itinerary in place.  I use the term "tour" loosely because Tammy and I are the only participants on our tour.  We have accommodations, transfers, and transportation in country arranged through the Asian travel company I used for my first trip to Vietnam:  Buffalo Tours.  

More bumps. Unless one is a citizen of the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or Indonesia, one must obtain a Myanmar visa.  Our travel agent strongly encouraged us to obtain our visas directly through an embassy rather than mess with the online version:  apply on line, receive a special letter of approval, and then secure the visa on arrival at the airport.  Still way too problematic our travel agent insisted. When I informed her that neither Tammy nor I currently resided in the USA, she remained adamant that obtaining a visa through the Myanmar Embassy in our respective countries of residence would be a much better option.

SIGH.

Well, Tammy lives in Germany but not particularly near Berlin where the Myanmar Embassy is located.  I live in Korea--Seoul, to be exact, where the Myanmar Embassy is located.  My bump may not be as big as Tammy's bump.  Tammy and I both inquired online through our respective embassy websites whether or not US citizens could obtain a Myanmar visa through their embassy.  Tammy received a reply outlining what she needed to do.  I received no response whatsoever.  I started exploring further online and located forms for a visa application written in English.  Then I found a blog post written by an American working in Korea about how she and her husband obtained a Myanmar visa last spring.  According to Jessica (see this), all I needed to do was show up at the embassy between 9:30 and 11:30 with the following things:

• Tourist visa application: You can get this at the embassy.  (I filled out one form for myself, and one for Simon and they did not question anything.)  Questions include physical description, permanent address, workplace and phone number, father’s full name, date of trip and other basic information.
• 2 color passport photos taken recently:  Mine were 2 inch by 2 inch, the same as what the Indian embassy requires, whilst Simon’s were normal passport photos.  Both were accepted.
• Alien registration card: For people without an alien registration card, the instruction form in the embassy states tourists in Korea without this card cannot get a Myanmar visa in Seoul.
• Flight schedule/itinerary to and from Korea.  Ours were round trip from Bangkok, and those were fine as well.
• Trip Itinerary including activities and cities you are visiting.  If you don’t exactly know, make one up.  Ours was a rough itinerary stating the days we would be in Yangon, Inle Lake, Bagan, and then back to Yangon.
• Passport with 6 months validity and space for a full page visa sticker.
• Visa fee of 25,000 won.

Everything listed I could do except show an ARC--an Alien Registration Card. Because I legally live and work in Korea through a different agreement between Korea and the USA, I do not have an ARC. SIGH. I decided to just wing it anyway.  

From the embassy website I printed a copy of the application and filled it out at home. I had one photo left in my stash of "visa" photos that I have learned to keep on hand traveling here in Asia. Although online instructions always state that 2-3 photos are required, inevitably the officials at the airport--where I usually complete my visa work--seem to only want one. Not willing to gamble with the protocol here, I had my photo taken at the mini-mall on post: four visa size photos for $11. ("Most Koreans are very picky about what photo to print," the Korean photographer says to me when I tell him he can choose which shot to print, "and you don't really even care." He doesn't know quite what to make of me. SIGH. I point out that the photos will disappear into some file never to be viewed again.  He smiles weakly.) Copies of the flight itinerary and the tour itinerary I had at the ready.

Although I kinda sorta knew the neighborhood referenced by the address for the Myanmar Embassy, I took a taxi. My plan was to offer the application, photos, itineraries, passport, and fee and then improvise regarding any fallout due to a missing ARC if necessary.  No one ever requested identification beyond the passport (YES!) and I certainly didn't volunteer anything. Only one photo was required. TOLD YOU! The English-speaking girl handling the transaction with me (there were three Korean men in the room feverishly filling out applications while I stood at the grated window) then instructed me to return in three days between 3:00 and 4:30 to pick up my passport with a visa inside. She reiterated that I could only pick it up between 3:00 and 4:30.  

As I departed the rather small and unassuming building housing the Myanmar Embassy, I considered my passport-less state and the fact that I had nothing to verify or vouch for my having surrendered my passport to the Myanmar Embassy in Seoul. Oh, the risks we take to wander the planet!

On the afternoon of the third day I returned to the Myanmar Embassy. At the same grated window where I had submitted my passport and paperwork, I now stood behind a Korean man receiving a stack of Korean passports--maybe six--held in place with a fat rubber band. When he stepped away, a different girl than the one who had helped me previously looked at me, and I said in English that I had come to pick up my passport. There was a noticeable moment of silence, and then she asked me--in English, thankfully--"What country are you from?" I didn't appear to be Korean, I guess!  After locating mine, she began thumbing through it. She did it three times, and I felt my anxiety escalate. Finally she said with a rueful smile, "I can't find the visa in your passport." Well, that wasn't good! The reality is, though, I have an abnormally fat passport because it has a ten-page extension in it. That and she kept getting side-tracked by the China visa, the Cambodia visa, and the Vietnam visas--of which there are THREE! And just when I thought I might have to SIGH aloud, she did find that Myanmar visa! Looking visibly relieved, she proudly showed it to me. I smiled big-time because I was definitely relieved, too, whether visible or not!

And so, dear readers, I now have a Myanmar visa in my passport good for a single entry into Myanmar of no longer than 28 days in duration to occur at some moment in time before January 16, 2015.

Road to Rangoon: Myanmar visa (CHECK!)

What's In a Name?

In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet thinks of Romeo and speaks these now famous lines:
      'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
      Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title.

And probably the sentiment expressed is indeed true. Still, there is something about a name. Certain names, even certain words, just embody possibility--or lack thereof--in ways that other names and words never can. I think most often the musical components of their pronunciation spark their magic, although the meaning of some word parts can kindle magic as well.

During my childhood, my mother had moments when she would tell us--her four, five, and ultimately six children--"I'm running away to Timbuktu." After assuaging that momentary first fear that she really might leave us behind, I would think that Timbuktu sounds like place so strangely wonderful it might only reside in imagination. In fact, on one occasion I asked my mom if it was a real place, and she assured me it was, and although I didn't feel particularly assured in that instant to know that it was a real place that she could go, I decided that someday I would like to go there too...even if my mom never agreed to let me accompany her on any of her threatened departures! (Running away to Timbuktu was apparently a solo trip.)

Literature and maps have provisioned me with multiple place names on which to focus my rambles. How could there not be something amazing, memorable, or at least endearing about a place called Kekaha, Cashel, Todos Santos, Ashkelon, Kota Kinabalu, Dingle, Machu Picchu, Irrawaddy, Jaipur, Ngorongoro, Ercolano, Bangkok, Cordoba, Saipan, Fort Huachuca, Lisdoonvarna, Pondicherry, Alice Springs, Kinshasa, Langkawi, Tipperary, or Isle of Skye?  And what about Drehenthalerhof? I actually lived in that wee German village for seven years!

I have yet to set foot in Timbuktu, the first place name to initiate thoughts of ever wandering away from the homeland. But this year currently looks promising for Rangoon (now Yangon), Mandalay, and the Irrawaddy. A trip to Myanmar is on the horizon!

A Train Story

After the development of several water projects in Utah’s central desert, Delta was founded in 1908 as an agricultural town supported by irrigation.  With that irrigation water in play, Delta achieved a prominent ranking as one of the largest alfalfa and hay seed producing regions in the USA from the 1920s through the 1960s.  But this is not an agriculture story; it is a train story.  In 1911, the Utah Southern Railroad closed its Deseret Station in Oasis, Utah, and opened its Delta Station—the largest station south of Salt Lake City—in the burgeoning new town.  My mother was born and raised in Delta, Utah (not counting the one year the family resided in Las Vegas).  Throughout my entire childhood, my family made regular trips to Delta to visit my grandparents, a few aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins.  I was a girl raised in suburbia, but the family visits to Delta introduced me to small town life—a realm with only one high school, pickups and tractors, water play optioned by large scale irrigation, dragging Main Street, full knowledge of back stories for the cashier in the store or the teens at the fast-food drive-in where we bought root beer flavored soft serve cones—and trains.

On a summer’s night, outside on a lawn in a tangle of sleeping bags with siblings and cousins, or even nestled on a couch or a bed in my grandparents’ house with windows open to catch the fortuitous cooling of a desert in darkness, the din and the vibration and the melody of trains wove themselves into intervals of a night’s soundtrack.  One summer my mother led us on a family hike along the tracks.  We practiced walking the rails like she had done as a child, with our hands we felt the tremor of those rails as a train in the far distance approached still too silent for our ears, then we marveled at the tangible clamor of a train passing over us as we crouched under the tracks bridging a dry gully, and we gaped at the flattened penny my dad placed on the tracks before the train actually passed our small party standing in reverential awe a safe distance away.  In Delta I learned the sound repertoire of trains:  hiss, clank, murmur, whistle, chug, rumble, shriek, and roar.  Up close and personal, without a car’s protective encasement, a moving train envelops one’s very being in blaring tumult, ambient agitation, and then a sense of shift in time and space.  For me, even now, it is shocking alchemy.

During summers stateside, I often drive from my dad’s home near Tooele, Utah, to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah, to attend a few plays.  Instead of taking the Interstate route, I follow a string of two-lane highways “the back way”—Tooele to Delta to Milford to Cedar City—roads with sparse traffic and signs cautioning drivers of the possibility of deer or cattle sharing the drive space.  My sister Diane mentioned a spring located just off the highway in all the space and empty between Delta and Milford that might offer some photographic moments interesting to me; it would also necessitate my leaving the highway and following a dirt road for short way.  On my return trip from Cedar City to Tooele, I spotted the sudden green space in the otherwise arid landscape, and I turned off the highway onto the dirt road.  After twenty minutes or so of dirt road driving and photographic fun, I made my way back to the highway but discovered this:

A train fully stopped on the tracks just in front of my entrance back onto the highway!

I waited a few minutes, hopefully expecting it to begin moving again.  Instead, I heard the hum of engines power down to silence.  Surely it would move again soon, I explained to myself, because why would a train stop here.  Then I hopped back out of the car to take train photos, of course.  The train remained still.  There was no way I could get my car to the highway side of the tracks as long as the train maintained its current position.  Where did the dirt road lead, I began wondering.  Would it end abruptly somewhere out on the desert or would it connect to another road that would lead back to the highway at another place?  What kind of options did I have if the train did not move?

Maybe twenty minutes later I discovered the headlight of a train traveling in the opposite direction of the one stopped in front of me.  So, the scenario unfolded before me did have a rationale, and I smiled with a certain sense of relief. 

The second train passed by, and the first train revved up the engines once more before slowly commencing forward movement.  Eventually the space between my car at rest on the dirt road and the highway across the tracks had cleared of train car obstacles, and I was on my way.  Once on the paved highway, I pursued “my train,” passed it, and then surrendered my view of it at all as the tracks angled right and the highway curved left. 

Train tracks stretch along the bench of the small mountain range several miles east of my dad’s house.  On summer nights when the windows are open, sometimes I hear the mournful wail of a train running those rails, and I am transported into the magic of childhood and memory.  All is well and I sleep.