Choo-choo-ah-choooo

"Sometimes it feels like
I don't really know what's going on.
Time and time again it seems
Like everything is wrong in here."

-- Last Train Home, Lost Prophets



I had one of those a-ha moments the other day.

My boss' office is directly in front of me. I can see through the windows into his office, and through the windows beyond into the great outdoors. My view all day long: trains. And nothing but.

Trains mesmerize me, and always have. I have never lived far from a rail, and I never have gotten through a night in my own bed without hearing the faint sound of a whistle. I have been known to stop my car and get out to feel the breeze of a passing train. Or to go sit on idle tracks to write. I've even done photo shoots centered on train tracks. And when I was in eighth grade I convinced my best friend Cindy to run away with me, along the tracks. (We packed hobo sticks and ran out of goodies before dark and headed back.) In high school I convinced best friend Aimee to sneak out in the middle of the night to hike along the tracks in the dead of winter to break into and photograph an abandoned steel mill. (We almost made it, took a cab back.)

The other day at work, rather than being interrupted by the sound of an approaching train to watch it at least start to go by, or pausing to clue in on why a train was stopped outside, or getting a little distracted by -- gasp -- two traveling in opposite directions at the same time, it was the other way around.

I realized I had been so engrossed in my work that I didn't notice all the action happening on the rails until I came out of that work-induced haze. A-ha.

I found dedication again. In work, not trains.