Sly Dawn

We rattled off into the dark too early this morning. The hours saved only for farmers, travelers and returning to senses from regrettable indiscretions.

And now we sway and toddle and click northward toward home. It's the Coast Starlight. A name full of some kind of Art Deco romance.

I whispered to my true love in the early dark hours down the line: I'll be on the first Coast Starlight. It's been too long. As if I've been away at war instead of visiting family for a few days. As if I'm all pin curls, champagne cocktails and throaty femme fatale instead of yoga pants and bedhead.

But when the train moans and shimmies over aching trestle bridges into sleepy urban back alleys, what else can I be?

The holidays came up fast and blurry this year. Sudden brake lights on a slippery street. I saw it all coming out of the corner of my eye. At some point between the falling of leaves and the big turkey dinner, I decided to get out and walk. Just skip the screeching, stressing adrenaline buzz and watch it calmly from off-center. Heavier pockets and lighter hearts in the end of it all.

Our train crawls steadily on toward home. Day breaks over warehouses, trackside bodegas, forgotten real estate. Buildings, landscape worn gray by the constant whistle rattle of transience. It's all beautiful in the way it survives.

The fog lies heavy, snags on bare trees and mutes the sunrise. It's a sly dawn. Imperceptible shifts in shades of gray. Layers of darkness peeled slowly back in transparent layers. Lightness comes by degrees but undeniable even so.

And I'm content.

I will ride this Coast Starlight to my true love. Humble, shambling, sounding its presence through back lanes; hesitant and mournful, but ending with a bold declaration.

I will ride this sly dawn into day.

Portland in the sly dawn