I just got a lovely email from the woman I used to email back and forth with when booking my train gigs. She was wondering how I was doing. I had wondered how she's doing too, hoping she hadn't lost her job, since the program is obviously suspended indefinitely.
I cried and smiled when I read her message.
That train gig, as most of you know, was a huge part of my road life. Photos of me singing on it are constantly floating up from the "facebook memory" bank, as are messages from people I've met at those shows.
The radiators in this apartment cling and clang like crazy, and it was bugging me at first, until one night I told myself to just pretend it's train-noise. I grinned and lay my head down and pretended that the bedroom here is a little train cabin, and suddenly the noise was fine. Welcome, even.
I still get stirred every time I hear the freight train whistle blow.
But this time here, this Winnipeg chapter, it's just one long train ride. I don't know what station I'll get off in, or how long the journey will be, but I'm as awake and alive and engaged in it as I can be, and I have been insisting, without too much difficulty, that this - this is just another stretch of road for me.
Clickety clack.