Elizabeths on a Train: Looking out and Looking in

 In October 2015, my friend Elizabeth and I went on a cross-country writing train trip from Montreal to Los Angeles in five days. Here are some stories, insights and musings that came from that adventure.


 “I love the time and in betweenThe calm inside meIn the space where I can breathI believe there is distance I have wandered to touch upon the years of Reaching out and reaching inHolding out, holding in….”
Yes those are Sarah McLachlan lyrics (Don't judge me. SM was integral to my college experience and I will always love her!). I thought about them on the trip. On the train it’s all about looking out and looking in. Similar, I think, to what that song invokes. That song has always struck me. It hits me at my emotional core. The trip’s “looking out and looking in” was an extension of that for me.




I long for the space the write. I long for the space and time. I long for looking out and looking in. And I got all of that on the train, for a few days at least.
A big part of being on the train is the looking out. You can really take in the world going past you and absorb it, not just move through it tunnel-visioned. All hours of the day you could do this. You couldn’t help but do it.
Elizabeth and I speculated about what we might see looking out. We thought Kansas might be a head-down-writing kind of state. It had to be boring. We were wrong.




Look and see.
When we pulled out of Montreal there were graffiti covered city walls. There were brilliant orange and gold leaves in upstate New York. Unbelievable gorgeousness sound tracked by the soft whistle of the train and the tin-y easy listening in the dining car. The scenery once out of Montreal city limits was straight out of a Bob Ross Painting. Happy little trees everywhere.




We saw incredible sunrises in Ohio and Colorado. (Ohio was a place I was sure I’d be fine sleeping though. Ditto for Indiana, but nope they were beautiful on the train.) Everything was train beautiful. 


The glass ceilings and walls of the observation car allowed everything in. I loved seeing country landscapes change as we headed west, from autumn trees to rolling plains to red rocks to desert plateaus. 


Cows and horses peppered the Midwest and llamas and goats hung out in New Mexico. Taking so much in all day everyday is fulfilling and eventually overwhelming. Enriching and debilitating at the same time. You are seeing so much.




And in the looking out something interesting happens. You look in. Being on the train is the time to disconnect and then reconnect to yourself. I don’t think I was really prepared for the depth of this. On the train there are no home responsibilities. There is no real itinerary to stick to. There is you, the world and your story. And your story is there whether you are there as a writer or not. It’s incredibly freeing. You know those moments in your life that you feel a step forward? Where you understand yourself a little bit more in that life changing way? That’s what happened on the train. Being in that headspace was amazing for writing. My brain was open and ready. The outside and the inside became one and I was off.


Elizabeth and I took these pictures on the trip not sure which ones are her and which were mine, but I love them!

To see the "other" Elizabeth's posts about our trip visit her  website.