Reflections: A Pause Between Places

My husband and I have just departed from Genoa. Our train pulled out of binario 19, heading towards Rome. We are settled in our seats.

There is something surreal about departing from one place and not yet having arrived at your destination.

The train’s rhythm and slight swaying put my mind at ease. Nothing to do now. I look through the window and admire the old villas and shimmering sea, glimpsing beautiful Camogli and Portofino, and later Cinque Terre. People sunbathing and swimming. I can just smell the water.

This relaxed state is soothing. After the rush to leave on time, get to the station and find the platform, this surrender to whatever may come is refreshing.

Now I can relax. I am only a passenger, totally in the hands of the driver and the Italian rail system.

With a new book in my hands, I can focus on taking in the ideas of the writer together with the soft smell of the paper. How I love the smell of new books!

The book is A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf—one of the few books in English I found in the bookshop at the train station. “I have not read it. It is about time,” I thought.

Woolf starts her discourse on women and fiction with care and depth. I am surprised and delighted with her philosophical stance and sharp analysis. I revel in her rich language and accurate descriptions. I am inspired.

What is it about being between places, experiences, states of mind, identities, between two thoughts or two breaths?

Is it confusion? Is it uncertainty? Or isn’t it just being? Being as opposed to doing.

Is there fear that something dear we have held onto so tightly is about to slip away forever? Or fear of something new, not yet clear or fully formed, and therefore a little scary?

Travelling sharpens this experience of liminality. I revel in it. I enjoy this momentary “not knowing” bit, the inevitable surprises—both frustrating and amazing—and the heightened perceptions.

“Don’t we thus travel through life?” I ask.

I love immersing myself in new places and cultures. Along the way, I relax into being just a traveller. I am more willing to momentarily abandon my other identities and the seriousness of performing them.

As I pause, I settle comfortably in this in-between state. There is no resistance to it, nor any excitement about what I might find in the new place. No urgency of any kind.

I sink into the cradle of my chair, soothed by the lullaby of the train, quiet and serene in my authentic pause.

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