Midnight Train to Georgia

created 4/14/2002, posted on 4/15/2002

This was my last day in New York. I would take an overnight train to Atlanta. A train that would take me to my new home in about, ugh, 18 hours.

3:35 p.m. (Newark) - With two huge and one medium-sized luggage, I still have two book bags on my shoulder. I guess I look awkward. I was just trying to bring "every necessary item" with me in this first trip, so I could start my new life immediately without much disruption and a lot of shopping. But at this moment, I actually felt so overburdened. I wondered how I gonna drag all of them onto the train once it arrived. But the train still didn't show up at this scheduled moment. I guess it was delayed, just as many Amtrak trains were these days.

3:45 p.m. (Newark) - The train still didn't show up. I ran to the information (and left my luggage unattended!). Not surprisingly, I saw it showed “Train 19: 30 minutes late.?

3:55 p.m. (Newark) - My friend Hsiang brought my phone and caller ID sets to me. I just forgot them in his car. Ironically, the train delay offered him enough time window to bring my stuff back to me. I guessed I forgot a lot of things along the way in the past two days. Moving is too stressful, especially when you were about to move to a completely new city by yourself, and by train. But I just didn't want to fly there. Flying is so stressful these days in the U.S. I especially felt reluctant to bring my laptop with me to board an airplane. The very thought of security-check people messing around with my computer really worried me. Though obviously, the train was not a much better alternative. And I don't drive by myself, in case you don't know it.

4:10 p.m. (Newark) - Yes!! Finally the train arrived! And it did delay half an hour ‘only.?Though it was really painful to drag my luggage more than 50 meters to the coach class (usually at the rear of train, but it was just too far from the front). The area I originally stood was for passengers on the “sleeper cars,”which cost $200 more on this route.

4:30 p.m. - The train fast passed New Brunswick, a place I used to visit frequently when one of my best friends was still a student at Rutgers University. However, I never really love this town too much. Unless I become a faculty in Rutgers, I guess I won't have chance to visit here often in near future.

5:00 p.m. (Trenton) - The state capital of New Jersey. Now I was about to leave New Jersey. I was thinking about calling a childhood friend who lives near Trenton but didn't. It was still peak hour rate for my cell phone (Does this reminding of that Voice Stream cell phone commercial?).

5:25 p.m. (Philadelphia) - When I saw the “Big Three?office towers, I knew I was now in Philly. Once upon a time in mid-1990's, I used to visit Philly on almost monthly basis because two of my closest Taiwanese friends went to school there at that time (and Philly is only 2 hours away from Baltimore, where I lived in mid-90's). Yes, friendship can make a relatively mediocre city full of fun (even New Brunswick). My experience with Philly is the best proof for that. I remember the good time we had in Chinatown, U-Penn campus, South Street, Manuyank, and yes, even Cherry Hill Shopping Mall. In 1997, I helped my friend writing lyrics for her musical, so I at least can claim I had experience in “writing a musical.?Both of my friends have long returned to Taiwan. But Philly is still associated with those great memories. Compared to what they have achieved after they returned home, it seems that I am obviously the underachiever of our bunch.

I made a phone call to my friend, currently in Taipei, and ready for a new day's work there. I asked him: “So, do you miss your life in Philly??

"Not at all.?he said. “I’m glad I’m back. This is my real home.?

"I might return to my real home sometime soon, and settle down there. But I don't know how long it will take from now.?I told him.

And I know I do not refer that 'real home' to New York City.

7:10 p.m. (Baltimore) - I didn’t realize the train was already in Baltimore until I heard a woman yelling aloud “Look, that is Johns Hopkins University!?Johns Hopkins Medical School and Hospital, more specifically. This huge complex is the only high-rise buildings in the very rundown East Baltimore so they are very visible. I wanted to call my former supervisor MCA to tell her that I was currently “in Baltimore.?But I realized she wasn’t possibly still in her office. Even though I never really enjoy this city in my life, I did have some great memories with my former co-workers and classmates here. Like Philly, memories associated with friends actually makes a place more lovely. Indeed, the experience in Johns Hopkins makes Baltimore just less boring (as I always call it Bore-Me-More). Will CDC make Atlanta more memorable?

7:35 p.m. (Baltimore-Washington International Airport) - This used be a station I passed by regularly because I commuted between Baltimore and DC several times a week in 1998 (1998 is the last calendar year I did not encounter any life-breaking disaster because 1999, 2000, and 2001 were all so catastrophic...). Traveling on the same route and on the same track brought back a lot of old memories. This commuting between two cities was actually more pleasant than commuting on New York’s subway. I remember I always had place to seat and read (and occupied two seats myself). And I could always grab a raspberry croissant at Au Bon Pain in DC's Union Station on my way running to catch the train. I used to complain about I had to commute to Baltimore to school and work and how time-wasting it was. Now looking back, the experience actually was not that bad. I loved both DC and Johns Hopkins, even though Johns Hopkins is not in DC. The daily train ride gave me some time reflecting about my life, something I could not achieve on the overcrowded New York subway.

8:00 p.m. (Washington DC) - Home. Am I? Then why did I stop at the front door and not got in?

Maybe I should. I ran down the platform and up the escalator. We only had 15 minutes in the station, but I wanted to grab a bite at Au Bon Pain (like I did in the old days). I was not really that hungry. I just wanted to re-visit my old habit. Something I did almost everyday but wasn't actually cherishing. Now, even just short encounter with this past routine made me feel satisfied. It's a little strange. Home is the place you somewhat feel bored but the place you want to return to when things go wrong in you life. I came to DC eight times last years but then complained it is just not as excited as New York most of time. Is there a pattern here?

But it is good to think about, I can go home again without actually going home.

8:30 p.m. - I tried to call a few DC friends when I was still in DC metro area. Interestingly, I had so many friends here that I just had no time calling every of them. The train left Alexandria station (in Northern Virginia, across Potomac River from DC). We were entering rural Virginia. I started to lose signal on my cell phone.

9:00 p.m. - I guess we were somewhere in Northern Virginia. But it was so dark, I couldn’t see if it's Blue Ridge Mountain outside the window. Actually, it was pitch black outside most of the time. I guess I wouldn't be able to see what Carolinas looks like later in this trip. Too bad, these two were the only states in Eastern seaboard I haven't been to.

I ordered a veggie burger from the caf car. It tasted really, really terrible. I should have grab something from some Chinese bakery in Chinatown. The smoke from the smoking section started to drift into the dining area. I retreated to my own car.

10:00 p.m. - This part of the train route was the part I have never been on before (I've never been on the track south of Washington DC), but I could not even see what it is like outside. I guess it is not scenic, so this leg of the journey is arranged at nighttime. I opened the book I just bought a few days ago; “San-Mau: the Biography?(¤T¤ò? and “The truth about San-Mau.?¤T¤ò¯u? San-Mau (means “Three-hairs?in Chinese, even she actually had a lot of hair) was an extremely popular writer in Chinese speaking world in 1970s and 1980s (however, few Westerners have any idea who she is). She studied in Spain, Germany and the U.S., married a Spaniard, Jose, six years younger than her, moved to Western Sahara, and evacuated to Canary Islands after Spain lost Western Sahara in 1975. Her husband died in a diving accident in 1979. People loved her stories about living in Sahara desert and the remote islands, stories about family life with a “Lau-Wai?(Westerners). All these were relatively uncommon experience for Chinese people before 1980's (not anymore, even my own cousins marry “Lau-Wai”now). Her travelogue to Latin America in early 1980's was one of the first travelogues about that region in Chinese world (even many of her description was inaccurate and pointless). After a few other failed romance and her screenplay lost in Taiwan’s Golden Horse Award (just like the Oscar), she killed herself in 1991 at the age of 48.

It's strange why I started to be fascinated with her when I reached my late 20's. I wasn't actually interested in San-Mau’s works until I started to be interested things about Spain and interracial/international romance (Not saying I have that experience myself...). She was constantly moving from one place to another place (sort of like me) and got involved in serial, different romantic relationship (and this ABSOLUTELY was not like me at all). At the end, she just couldn't find another ideal husband like Jose and she committed suicide (another one of my interested topic. I even built my research career on it). Ironically, her suicide has immortalized her further. However, many people I know don't even believe anything she wrote. Some people think she was delusional, or even schizophrenic. A self-proclaimed adventuror, C.H. Ma, even ventured to Africa to write a book “The truth about San-Mau.?¤T¤ò¯u?, to ‘expose?all her lies (or as he said).

It was a strange occasion to read her life story, as I was myself moving from one city to another one (or even one stage of my life to the next). But I thought it could be a good companion to go through this transition journey.

1:00 a.m. - Were we still in Virginia? In my reading, now San-Mau was finishing her South American trip and moved back to Taiwan and I started to lose interest in the rest of her life (and her love life). I needed some sleep.

7:00 a.m. - Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I would wake up in Georgia, the land of "Gone with the Wind" and Scarlet O'Hara. Wait! now, tomorrow is today and I was about to enter Georgia, my new home state.

7:30 a.m. - Because the food on this train was so bad, I decided I would only have coffee. Ugh, even coffee tasted very bad. I should have stuck to the airplane. At least peanuts and pretzels are more edible (and I do not choke on things like that). I started to read "The Truth about San-Mau."

8:30 a.m. - This book was as self-promoting as the author he tried to ‘expose.?The author obviously was disgusted by her stories long before he set off his journey to discover “the truth.?I started to regret about spending money on a tabloid trash like this.

9:30 am. - Suddenly, train arrived in Atlanta when I didn't even pay attention to it. I didn’t even have much time to drag my luggage out. Things got chaotic again, just like when I was in Newark. I hailed a cab, to my new apartment. These two books remained unfinished, just like many things back in New York. But at this moment, I have to work on my new life chapter first.

Today, is another day.