Comfort Zone

Yesterday I finished the Empire Builder, completing the remaining distance of the trip from Minneapolis to Chicago in the morning and afternoon. Through the Cascades and Glacier National Park, back in late March, it was unconscionable to close my eyes or spend too much time writing and miss the last vestiges of boreal. I awaited new scenery beyond Union Station in Chicago.

Somehow, a different “Midwest” awaited me when we began to clack through Indiana and Ohio. I’m unapologetic that I missed most of this region overnight as filler in-between Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland.

Washington, DC lied ahead of me. After a fairly easy trip from Chicago to Union Station, transfers from the Capitol Limited to the Red Line to the Green line went smoothly and now I’ve arrived to start a political position. A lack of writing and lots of separation between sensibility and ideas made me restless, so I took off for the midterm election season.

Before doing so, I had a lame-duck week to spend in Duluth in transition. It can be an interesting segue in life of counting down to a moment yet retaining much of the daily routine before the time comes to actually move. The pages had been filled, so to speak, with my observations on residential construction and coffee shop work.

I made sure I enjoyed a cask stout at the Brewhouse where I was puzzled at the natural progression of age and status. I purchased the train tickets, figured out some money. Mowed the lawn. Walked in the woods. Ran errands to the mall, and watched the other humans watch me look out of place. Watched some tennis. Enjoyed a meal with the family. Oiled up the boots. Picked vegetables, baked bread.

On the train, though, with fall flying at me and leaves beginning to fall, I accept that being out of a comfort zone is at times comfortable in itself. More to come.