TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY — I am blaming the train for the monotone stream of consciousness my writing has devolved into. Or maybe it's just the way I'm reading it in my head.
The wheels on the tracks are like heartbeats. Incidentally, the moment we got on the train I stopped worrying about my heartbeat. It is the movement, I think. It's comforting even when it's not comfortable. Like being on the ocean.
I have realized that it is a bit of a mistake to think that, just because a person is crossing several thousand miles of a country, that a person is seeing that country. I guess at some level I knew this would be the case. However interesting the villages, there they go, and who knows what is beyond them; all that countryside which does not happen to be gathered around the railroad tracks. And who lives there? What are their days like? And there go the cities, and the street or two I see when the carriage is stopped. And the bustle by the rivers. And it is also very difficult to avoid the reading and the sleeping that draws a person away from the window for even these moments. And besides I don't remotely try to avoid it.
Morning time.
Afternoon time.
Perhaps a person would be better off seeing the Russian countryside on a bicycle. Of course, a person has to have the time and energy for a thing like that. And a bike. And probably a few other things.
Why won't the train attendant assigned to my car say hello to me? I say it every time I see her. Today I got her to smile.
I met a man a few doors down who is from Alabama. He said he feels guilty saying it, but he didn't realize the Trans-Siberian would be so boring. I was glad that I didn't have to say it. When I inevitably start to feel this way, I close my eyes and visualize myself moving across a map, and consider that I am about a third of the planet away from my home and how incredible that is. I try not to think about how much the forests remind me of the birch grove behind my parents' house, and how August in Alaska is so lovely, but instead the great histories that have crossed this place. Then I am trapped again, like the problem at the Great Wall, in a mire of unknowable stories.
The solution is books. I need more books. About everything. And time to read them. Actually in that sense trains are perfect. I should buy a year's worth of train tickets, and pack a trunk full of books. A trunk, because doesn't that just sound better? Even if it is a cliche a little bit? Maybe people should travel entirely in the cliches they're most afraid of. Especially someone like me that cares too much what people think. I SHOULD get a year's worth of train tickets, and a trunk, and cover it in stickers. I should get one of those sport fishing vests with a bunch of pockets, like I'm going on safari, and fill them with film and hard tack. I'm not even sure what hard tack is. I should take pictures of EVERYTHING. And ask for directions even if I think already know where I'm going. I should just stop people and ask them, "Where am I going?" Mostly they would laugh at you or worse, but I bet one out of a hundred times you'd get something really amazing.
Monotony aside, this is still a beautiful journey, and I have collected some information about Russia. I know that the forests are plentiful and lush. And that the train stations are improbably sized and colored. I have seen two primary types of living quarters — those of the tall concrete fashion, and those of the small and sagging wooden or stone type. From the neat shutters and thriving gardens, I think that I'd prefer the small houses to the sterile boxes of the apartment complexes. Which seem to be planted everywhere, like the innumerable statues of Lenin, no matter the size or location of the town. I think there is a lot to learn from looking at all of these homes. From looking very, very closely. But then we are past.
We have managed to open communications ever so slightly with our cabin mates, Elena and Sergei, and I have learned several things about them as well. They wear matching rings, so I think they are married. They do not have children. Elena is my same age, and Sergei enjoys listening to music and doing crosswords on the train. They are very tidy people, always wiping off the table and stacking their supplies neatly after their meals — usually sausage and cucumber and tomato, supplemented by cup of noodles or instant mashed potatoes. Which they always offer to share. Like us, they've bought several of the deep-fried piroshkis that come by on a tray every once in a while. Sergei has a very big knife. They are both very stylish. They drink a bit of kvass every day, a carbonated, mildly alcoholic beverage. Elena is very kind, but shy. She shared her coffee, and her cold medicine, when she noticed I had the same symptoms she did. She cried the first day and I think it was because she had to spend her Trans-Siberian vacation with tourists who speak almost no Russian. But maybe that wasn't it. Sergei is serious, but smiles when Kristina and I tease each other, and when we tiptoe carefully into a question in Russian. I can understand a few of the things they say. Which is encouraging. And I am realizing Sergei may not be as serious as he seems, now that I see his T-shirt, which matches his wife's bright blue pants, and says something like: It's good, there's nothing to do.
My spot.Elena and Sergei are on vacation from Irkutsk, we think, planning to spend three nights in Moscow. Sergei told us that the picture Kristina took of the statue in Irkutsk is of the first cosmonaut in space. This was our most detailed conversation.
Elena and Sergei are very attractive people. Though it's possible I think that about everyone, I don't know. But seriously, they are.
In unrelated news, I have grown increasingly anxious about missing the first rehearsals for the production of Les Mis I am in this fall. Last night I had a terrifying dream involving stage blocking, and a particular stage manager being displeased with me. As I am quite fond of this particular stage manager, I hope this dream does not come to pass. I will listen now to my recorded parts, and the group songs, and watch the birch trees, and try not to scare Elena and Sergei with the practicing of my Madame Thenardier facial expressions.
I slept for three hours earlier. Only now does Kristina tell me that I snored loudly through most of it. What must Elena and Sergei think? I am horrified.
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