The Gift of a Moving Train

While waiting to cross the train tracks the other evening, I stood patiently watching for a train that was not yet in sight.  The signals were there.  The red and white arm which serves as a physical boundary lowered itself right in front of me.  The red flashing lights alternated like a sentinel keeping watch.  And instead of questioning the possibilities, I stood tolerantly waiting for the train to approach.

At first, it approached as several lights in the distance, incandescent beacons illuminating the dusky twilight sky.

The lights pushed their way through the darkening horizon gaining brilliance as they sped their way towards me.  Horn blaring strong and loud.

Closer and closer it came, at first appearing non-threatening and almost toy-like and then...real.

Before I knew it, the train was upon me, rumbling past in a whiz of light, color, smell and sound.

The breeze pushed me back a step or two, but I stood unwavering as the train soared its way past me from wherever it had come, moving on to where it was going.

I felt almost dizzy on my feet, taking a moment to absorb the possibilities of what ignoring the signs of the impending danger might entail.  All of the warnings were there to keep me safe and sound.  Yet, the choice was mine to make.  Take heed of the physical boundary, the flashing lights and the blaring horn, or move forward with reckless abandon.

I watched as the train sped past and then disappeared into the distance.  The arm raised and the lights stopped flashing.  The scent on the breeze turned from metal on metal, back to salt-air and sea.  It was, once again, safe to cross.

Life is, so often, like that.  We are offered harbingers of what is to come, but all too often, we ignore the signals.  Things are placed into our pathway so as to gently, or not so gently, guide us towards safety, and yet, we sometimes refuse to take a moment to evaluate.  We ignore the guidance.  We attribute the dizzying feeling to a bad burrito.  We close off our ears to the blaring horn.  And then we wonder why it hurts so much when the train seems to come out of nowhere and hits us head-on.

In 2010, I will listen more intently to the voice which starts out tolerably gently, rather than waiting until it becomes a roaring train barreling past me(or worse yet, over me!) in a near miss.  I will search for the smaller signs instead of waiting for the flashing lights and sirens to alarm my adrenaline system into a state of panic.  I will pay more attention to the physical boundaries which are seemingly placed in front of me, randomly.

We all have our own emergency alert systems.  God, The Universe, intuition.  Our job is to pay attention to the signs that tell us that the train is coming.  And then to stand back and watch the marvel of it, without getting harmed.