I
gaze aft from my place in the bow.
The windmill in the little wind power station behind the wheel is nearly totally still.
Front-row seat. A sea-view as far as the eye can see. A clear, blue sky without a cloud in sight. A becalmed, mirror-like sea. But that’s not good enough for a restless mind starved for stimulation.
A formative mind that never learned the importance that a pause from external stimulus is essential.
I close my eyes and escape into a mind and thought sphere.
Once there, I share a train cabin on the Trans-Siberian railway with an unknown woman who arouses my curiosity.
I’ve just turned twenty and did something which at that time was different, completely outside my ‘normal’ character structure.
To choose to travel alone through Russia by train was not a decision that surprised those who knew me. But to reveal my innermost secrets to a stranger was something that went entirely against my strong integrity.
It was cathartic in some way. To divulge something, I have carried for so long I can’t even remember. Somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok, somewhere between integrity and being excluded.
She had the seat opposite mine. I tried to give my attention to the snow-capped landscape passing outside. But my gaze longs to rest on her beautiful manifestation: long, black braids hanging over a multi-coloured poncho, rosy cheekbones on light brown skin. An appealing stillness in contrast to the constantly changing view on the periphery.
She seemed familiar, as though we’d met previously. As if we’d always known one another despite our not yet having spoken. It sounds stupid, wholly without logic, as life often is.
I don’t remember her name, but that doesn’t matter as I remember what she said that touched me deeply.
She did not ask me for my name, she asked why I was traveling on just this train.
The superficial reply would have been that I had chosen to travel through Russia by train as I, at a restaurant a few weeks prior to booking my trip, overheard a conversation about the Trans-Siberian railway.
But as the question was asked from deep within, even the answer came from a more authentic place within me.
I remember that without thinking about it, I answered that I most likely sat on just this train because of a strong inner conviction that we could not only exist our short human experiences here on earth. That I was bound to break free completely from the structured life I was incorporated into in an attempt to find some other way that would bring me closer to the truth of what we are.
This trip was my first conscious step toward a lifestyle and life paths, which I then didn’t realise would mean challenges I had never dreamed of.
I asked for the truth and that is what I’d get. But it would not be presented to me wrapped in tissue paper, as I naively believed at that time. At that time, I read about truth in books and holy writings. Truth was a mental projection of a better reality beyond the one I had.
But I had not even consciously tasted it. Its nectar was simply something in my imagination that I longed for but did not know how to find.
She said only one thing the entire trip. Otherwise she sat quietly and listened, attentive. She did not at all seem to feel what I shared was strange or dopey. She seemed to understand and just nodded a bit now and then.
Our paths parted when a voice from the loudspeaker in broken English said that those who were changing to the Trans Mongolian Railway were to disembark.
Some meetings are short but leave long-term impressions on us. This was such a meeting.
A meeting beyond the superficial roll-playing we often play when meeting others. This was a meeting where someone bares their heart and a calm presence listens without judging, assessing and analysing. A meeting permeated by honesty and true love.
A meeting so short yet nevertheless so authentic.
She stood on the platform with her bag in one hand and a large fur hat on her head. We continued silently watching each other through the window as the train rolled on.
I remember her energy seemed to stay with us in the compartment and in me, long after she had disembarked.
I also remember the second and last thing she said on the whole trip. I jotted it down in my notebook later that day, a notebook filled with thoughts, reflections and quotes. A notebook I, a few years ago, cleaned out with various other belongings I no longer considered myself to need.
I remember anyway, as if it was said to me yesterday. But according to humans’ made up time structure it was not yesterday but eight years ago.
Just after a long silence and right before she was changing trains, she said, “Once you’ve experienced a taste of truth is when you can first make a conscious choice to allow your dynamic existence to be in harmony with it.”