Once. Twice.

An intense, infrequent pleasure of mine in a previous job was attending meetings in New York City. The journey may have been more fondly anticipated than its destination.

I always took the train, and in those days our budget (and company policy) allowed me to travel in the "club car" or first class – a separate large, comfy seat; complimentary soft drinks; waiter and porter service by an Amtrak attendant. The tracks between Providence and New York pass by miles of saltwater marshes and beaches, and I always made sure to sit on the side nearest the ocean in order to savor the views.

Last week I cleaned out some file cabinets at work – a walk through my writing history – and found these musings scribbled on a note pad.


On observing; on being observed

Out the train window I see two swans gliding in an inlet fringed by seagrass. I see, on the edge of a deserted beach, a doe regarding my train without fear.

No one else in this train car is looking out the window; they are hunched over Wall Street Journals and thick typed reports. I pity them!

I think: The deer and swans exist. They are because they are. But when I see them, they are twice over. They exist both in their reality and in mine.

Perhaps this is what we are seeking when we yearn to be noticed, to be considered, by our fellow humans. We seek a sort of immanence by achieving multiple incarnations: in our own consciousness (guaranteed while we're alive and well) and in that of others (hoped for). Even better is to be not only noticed but remembered.

How sweet, how rare the adjective "memorable"! To be noticed and remembered is to be multiplied and given life after life after life.

Those swans and that deer are long dead as I type this blog entry, but here they are before my eyes again, warm-blooded and alert; immortal.