Beyond there the land starts to show the familiar contours of farmland that I still, after two decades away, in my heart call home. The train's blurring passage lends everyday scenes a poignancy. A farmer tossing feed to his cows. Wash hanging on a line by a row of junked cars. An Amish family's buggy riding past a gas station.
Watery sunlight fills our train car and passengers hunch forward, ready to get where they're going.
I should be in a hurry, but I'm not. I'm still waiting. The grace notes I did find appeared far from the glare of mall lights and commercially enforced holiday cheer. Whether watching New Orleans midnight jazz sitting on a wood plank floor, singing carols by firelight in Williamsburg or trading jokes with the Liberace Museum's conscripted gold-lam Santa, they were singular moments of shared warmth. What I have come to understand is that this time of year grants people an excuse to lower their guard, to reach out and make connections with strangers.