Starting out

This is the easy bit. The beginning. Everything is new and interesting. All senses are keen and attentive. Nothing has happened yet so there is no programming. There is, however, an innate sense of danger. Life is fragile. You could be crushed. Just popping your head out of that womb is a critical act.

Starting out is essential. It can even be put off. It is the beginning and the first step but it is possible to not take that first step that is so vital.

Starting out means getting on the train. Starting out means beginning the journey. Beginning the journey means admitting that there are beginnings, middles and ends.

So I got into the train. I was worried. I was scared in case the train was not going to the place I wanted to go to, the place I had bought a ticket for but in this instance I was forced to admit that this particular worry did not make sense because I had not chosen a destination but simply a method of transport. I needed to be on the move and I needed to be in that train. Most of all I needed to get rid of the sensation that I had missed a train or that I was running after a train or that I was in some sense a runaway train with no driver. For a long period in my life that is the feeling I had. That my life had somehow run away with itself and I was rushing, running, straining, trying to catch up with it and jump in the wagon but the train would not slow down or stop and wait for me.

That lasted for a long time until I was forced to let that train go and decisively decide to deliberately climb up into the next one.

So here I am sitting in the train. It hasn’t started to move yet but I am in it. That is a big relief. There are so many opportunities for missing it. I have often missed trains, or had to run after them, or tried to run after them, as I said, but the worst experiences in my life have been when I got on them and I shouldn’t have. O, well, I did it and that’s that. But oh my how I should have stayed put, and avoided the heartache.

Today, I have a window seat. That in itself is extraordinary. I will be able to see for miles once it leaves the station. If it ever leaves the station. Yes, I have become a little cynical over the years. It may not even be enough to have taken the decision to get in the train. The train still has to leave the station. And that is not my responsibility. Surely it is enough that I have put myself in the train? Isn’t that laudable behaviour? I have stopped whinging and whining about not going anywhere and I have boldly stepped along the platform and into the door and am now seated in a carriage and all set for a new life. Or at least a life that is going somewhere, even if I do not know where the life is going. I am going. I am in the train. You must be impressed by that? Surely somebody is impressed by that? I don't hear any cheering or applauding.

At this point I could keep the train sitting in the station and describe the station and describe my state of mind describing the station – the station could be run down or beautifully kept, my state of mind could be melancholic (or even suicidal, why not?) or high spirited and optimistic. But I don’t choose to do that. I want to get on the move. There is just something about being on the move. Life is a journey and there is nothing worse than feeling stuck or standing still. Movement is pleasure and the feeling of moving is better than the feeling of not moving so here we go, the train leaves the station we did not even take the trouble to situate, except that it stood at the end of a long period of stagnation, and heads out into open country, towards a place equally mysterious.

Chug chug chug

The train moves out of the station and I think to myself this is what I have dreamt about for so long and have longed for and waited for and wished for and here it is, finally happening, the wheels are turning and the train is moving and I am in it. And it doesn’t feel as wonderful as I thought it would. So all you dreamers out there thinking of a better future and of wonderful improvements in your life inside or outside, don’t forget to hug the moment and enjoy each day as it comes and as it stays and then as it passes.

So here I am in the train, for better or worse, and it has left the station behind and is out in open country. I could jump out of the train and run away but what would be the point of that? I don’t even know for sure where it is going so why try to avoid un unknown destination? I will stay put and admire the view and enjoy the travelling. After all, I am very lucky to have a window seat. The train is quite busy and there are few windows and so I am really very privileged to have a window seat.

Funny how what you really, really want becomes anxiety-generating when you actually begin to have it.

Anyway here I am, in the train, the train moving and no longer at the station.

At this point it does not matter what the station was like or whether I miss it or not, the station is history. This train may well go all the way back to that station but I doubt very much whether I will be in it at that point. So it is goodbye station and good riddance!!! I didn’t even know you that well. I am in my train and my train is moving and we have left you behind.

Now we are out in the open country. I am lulled to sleep by the gentle rolling and the chug chug chug of my train. Finally moving. Finally in the train. Finally in the right place at the right time. Tra la la la here I go here I am and here we are and here it is.

The moving, the journey, the travelling. There is nothing else. The occasional tunnel, but I am unbothered by it, for I am inside a moving carriage.

And the engine!!! Oh, well, let’s talk about the engine!!! Well, I know absolutely nothing about engines and don’t want to know anything about engines, not how they work or how to fix them if they break down. No. I have bought my ticket and that ticket entitles me to a journey and if the train breaks down they will supply another one and get me there, nothing can stop me now from getting there even though I have no destination and do not know where I am going or where the train is going all I know is that I must be on the move and be travelling towards some destination even if I never reach there, I know that it is not important to reach anywhere or to know where that somewhere could be but to have the impression of moving there’s a fine thing. To be on one’s way. Alive. In action.

How else could I put it?

And what is important for me here? Because, after all, if I have put myself in this situation there must be something here that I must be trying to find out? Is it important to me to have the satisfaction of having “caught” the train? What a funny term. Catch. Like an illness. Or a fish. I caught the train.

In any case, here I am and it is all going swimmingly and fabulously well and I am very happy with all this. I am happy to be in the train and not to be standing still any more. I am feeling, in fact, extremely self-congratulatory. Guilt immediately sets in. It is not good to feel proud of oneself. That is very nasty indeed – a sin, in fact, if one believes in sins. Well, when all is said and done, that is a matter of fact, sins are not good for you or anyone else. It can do the known cosmos no good whatsoever that I feel proud of myself at having ‘caught’ a train.

It doesn’t take very long for me to realise that the setting off is over, the start of the journey is finished, and this is now the middle. I am right in it. The thick of things, the going, on and on and round the bend and along the straight and narrow again, yes this is it! Not yet the end, no, a far cry from the end. There is no end in sight or well, nigh and it would be premature to talk of terminals because the train just caught has just taken off and left the station but it is really absolutely far too late to talk about that last station (and too early to think about the next one, if there is one, and well, we know there is one because trains move generally between stations, otherwise nobody would ever be able to get on or off).

So here we are, already in the middle, the beginning botched or at the very least contrived or in some way mistaken, getting in any old train not even knowing where it was going. And the beginning was much shorter than we expected it to be so we have to make the middle last - don't want to spoil it by allowing it to come to an end too soon.