Ghost boy, he tossed me a lucky coin

[sovay]

Night train to Providence. Does not have the same ring as Munich, but at least I don't have to deal with Rex Harrison charming his way to center stage through sheer force of conceit, changing shape just faster than the last one can wear out its welcome. (And it's not a night bus, but I still suspect Oscar Shapeley of being around here somewhere. Oscar Shapeley is always around somewhere. That's the trouble with him.) Concrete platforms like empty stages, LED streetlights flicking by in the dark. You can tell how close we are to the solstice because the horizon was still ember-apple green as I got on the Red Line at Porter Square. I am heading down to help friends pack out the last of the apartment I watched them move into, almost exactly ten years ago. Storage unit tomorrow, movers the day after that. Then I'll send them letters care of the American South. I have come to associate them with this city, with its ocean and its mythology and the quality of light in their front room. It will feel weird to visit it and know they are not somewhere in it, part of what makes the city itself. It is hard not to feel at all times that everything's over, nothing left but the ongoing process of loss; that is the rhetoric of the world right now and too much of the reality of it. I have to remind myself it is not absolute. They will make part of another city. Everything changes shape, not just Rex Harrison.

Comments

[umadoshi]

I hope the train ride and the packing/moving all go smoothly, and also that you're able to get some sleep.

[sovay]

I hope the train ride and the packing/moving all go smoothly, and also that you're able to get some sleep.

Thank you. The train ride has been unremarkable and I'm hoping it's an omen. Those lilacs are very nice.

[asakiyume]

Everything changes shape --a truth that guts me, especially in the wee hours of the morning. I should have no vested interest in the city your friends live in, but yeah: as long as I've been on social media, reading you, they've lived there, and now they're moving, and I have second-degree melancholy because of the change.

ember-apple green --love that

[sovay]

I should have no vested interest in the city your friends live in, but yeah: as long as I've been on social media, reading you, they've lived there, and now they're moving, and I have second-degree melancholy because of the change.

I am holding on to change rather than disappearance, but it is and will be different and I am sorry it ripples out.

*hugs*

--love that

Thank you.

[tree_and_leaf]

I dunno, I always find travelling on American trains more exotic and adventurous than travelling with Deutsche Bahn....

[sovay]

I dunno, I always find travelling on American trains more exotic and adventurous than travelling with Deutsche Bahn....

Well, I am modeling my assessment after a WWII adventure film.

[davidgillon]

There aren't many people who could turn "I'm helping friends move" into something poetic!

[sovay]

There aren't many people who could turn "I'm helping friends move" into something poetic!

Thank you!

[jesse_the_k]

+100.

You could write a poetic phonebook!

[sovay]

You could write a poetic phonebook!

Thank you! Then I'd just wish I could resurrect Peter Cushing to read it.

(I once said I'd listen to him read the ingredients off a packet of cornflakes. I stand by it.)

[drwex]

I love the flow of your writing. The 'night train' is such an evocative concept and that time of evening is my favorite liminal space.

[sovay]

I love the flow of your writing. The 'night train' is such an evocative concept and that time of evening is my favorite liminal space.

Thank you.

One of the compensations of greygirlbeast and humglum moving is that if I want to visit them in their new home, I'll have to take an overnight train.

[selkie]

The Crescent is a nice route, even!

[sovay]

The Crescent is a nice route, even!

I might have to stop in D.C. on the way down.

[selkie]

Fine cuisine and a slight waft of hockey pad await!