There is no wifi on this train (other than the open networks I have to hunt for during the brief stops at the stations along the way), so all I can do is read a book, look out the window, write.
Over the Mississippi, crossing from Illinois to Iowa and the landscape remains monotonous, almost like a videotape playing on loop. Field after field, dotted with the occasional red house or white silo, all looking the same for miles and miles. Yet it is mesmerizing in its empty repetitiveness, like a desert this rural landscape lifts up my thoughts like a plastic bag in the wind and brings them far.
I look at the little dot moving slowly on the map on my phone. Chicago is another planet, yet just a few hours away behind us. Small towns, little white wooden churches, a small station that only has a train or two a day to wave goodbye to. A quiet Sunday afternoon: people sitting on the porch, families enjoying a barbeque and a few cold beers.
At first I wonder how can people live here. Then I realize that one’s ”middle of nowhere” is someone else’s ”center of the world”. In the end, it’s always all just about finding your own place: some people are born there, others can never stop looking.
In the meantime, the sun sets over the plains as Iowa turns into Nebraska. The last dying light glows on the horizon, as we slowly keep chasing after it.