There were trains for getting around before there were planes. You have to walk before you can fly.
The first trains were big, lumbering, uncomfortable, dark, and were powered by men shoveling coal into fireboxes to heat water and using the created steam to turn gears and wheels. Train tracks were wide and it took the help of thousands of Chinese immigrants to lay down track from one side of our American continent to the other.
Modern trains are sleeker, well lit, aerodynamic, fast.
Waiting for the Number 8 bullet train in the Narita Airport,we commuters stand religiously at our proper pick up spot.
When my train stops and its door opens, I step inside and take my seat and hope I haven’t gotten on the wrong slow boat to China. As we make more stops,new passengers, that have no seat, grab rings hanging from the ceiling with one hand, hold on to their purse or suitcase firmly with the other.
The ride from the Narita airport to the Haneda Airport is two hours through pastoral Japan countryside, and through medium size cities.
My commute gets me to the Haneda Airport and I grab my carry on bag. I had four hours to get from one airport to the other, get my boarding passes, get to my right gate, and board the right plane. Two and a half of those four hours have already been burned up in transit.
Japan has captured my attention.
Coming back to Japan is one of the things I want to do. I want to take Godzilla to a Sumo wrestling tournament.
I think he would enjoy seeing two big men wearing diapers, trying to throw one another out of a ring not much bigger than they are.
The nautical miles click by and Marinduque disappears.
The Philippines move into memories, that funky place where facts get forgotten, emotions get heightened, truth gets obscured, and we turn experiences into what we want them to be instead of what they really were.
Montenegro lines will get us safely across this pond and when we dock it is still a four hour bus ride to Manilla, a throbbing, bustling metropolis that even locals want to avoid.
Tomorrow, early, I take a plane to Japan, then Minneapolis,then finally to Denver. Time zones will be barreled through like a NFL lineman going after a quarterback,
There is a saying that ” Wherever you go, There you are. ”
There is another equally powerful old saying that, ” Travel changes you. ”
The water is still and opaque.There are islands we pass that wave at us and seabirds glide above us, their extended wings riding the drafts. A sailor takes a last puff on his cigarette and flips it overboard with his forefinger. In the sitting area a kung fu movie is kicking and those that can sleep, do.
Travelling by boat is not fast but I have learned not to be in a hurry.
On this day, Gwen graduates from kindergarten at a local community center.
It takes some urging to go on stage with her aunt April, but she walks on and is recognized.There are recitations by some of the kids, comments by teacher’s and invited guests, a small lunch afterwards.
We have no crystal balls to know the future.
We hope Gwen has many graduation ceremonies, has dreams and achieves them, takes advantage of her abilities, compensates for her shortcomings, finds the people she needs to find.
By the end of the ceremony, balloons are broken or fly up and away into the coconut trees.
Proud parents and relatives walk home with one hand on a paper certificate, the other holding the hand of their future.
Albert and Bella are two of five dogs at the house.
There are also two cats plus a new Kitty who joined the wrecking crew last night, abandoned in the road and following us home. Next morning it is curled up against one of the dogs on the front step, unaware that cats and dogs are supposed to be enemies, not friends.
There is a horse tied up in the next door vacant lot, two roosters, three hens and nineteen eggs hatching. There are eight pigs, lizards climbing on walls, two new parakeets. A cow grazes close by. Fish are in the river, pigeons are in coconut trees, a spider web is growing where the trunks of two trees meet by a back fence.
Yesterday we saw a Komoto Dragon eyeing the chicken coop but he disappeared when Alma threw a a stone at him that just missed.
This is, Alma says, ” my Gilligan’s Island. ”
I haven’t seen Gilligan but I expect he is hiding out in the hills living off his Social Security, smoking weed for aching joints, and trying to get organized.
These two parakeets are new to the front porch.
The two birds and cage were a thousand pesos, about $20.00. The two of them sing, preen, watch the world from their small enclosure.They are confined, but they are safe.
Sitting below is one of Alma’s cats, looking up, calculating ways to reach them.He caught a mouse yesterday and played with it in the dining room before making it a meal.
Morning sunlight pours into the porch and the green blue white tropical birds share love poems.
This cat is out of luck, but yearning.
These are the makings of a country western song.
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