Travels Across a Lifetime

In this time of isolation, the sound of a train recently connected me to places where I have traveled across my lifetime.  Since childhood, there has been something particularly magical about the experience of traveling by train. For me it’s an instant connection to distant places, a romantic nostalgia for bygone times, and a sense of mystery and wonder about what lies ahead.

Cathy Salter

My first train trip was from New England to Washington, DC when I was ten years old.  My mother, quite pregnant at the time, instructed her three young daughters to board the train ahead of her while she organized a porter to haul our luggage aboard.  Suddenly on our own, we felt the train begin moving not knowing how the journey would end.  A good first lesson in self-reliance.  

Sixty-five years later, a sound from the past is carried on a breeze though our kitchen window.  Solitary and transient, I recognize it as a train moving freight along the bluffs just across the Missouri River.  And with that memory cue, I begin a nostalgic journey back across the years. 

~ Read the rest in today’s Journal ~