Editor’s Note: Marlow and W return from a week on the road, seven straight days experiencing life on the rails and on the street in today’s America. You might want to call it ‘Home for the Holidays,” or an “Ode to Joy,” but on this day, a very special one, let us thank our lucky stars that we are who we are, and can still live the way we wish. Merry Christmas!

– Vic

Author’s Note: As the morning sun rose over our southbound train this past Friday, a section of uneven track bed jostled our car causing a few light taps upon our compartment’s windowpanes by our Christmas lights which made me turn to the window. Surface fog had begun to rise from the fields and streams that laced South Carolina’s still green, patchy marsh and farm landscape. I sleepily watched these mists — the spreading, very light diaphanous fog gave me the sense that it could all disappear in an instant. I like it felt provisional, temporary.

Our neon lights time had come to an end. The fog continued growing and thickening as we slowly crept into another village and passed a lonely churchyard and its cemetery. The rising mists began to drift and cover crooked crosses and tilting headstones as well as the spears of the cast iron entrance gate. By the time we rolled into Savannah’s station, the fog had lifted and been washed away by a light rain that ceased as we glided to a smooth stop…

Foggy morning Savannah River homeward bound crossing

I was struck as I descended from the train by the thought that our NYC interlude had been an ode to joy, allowing us to put aside the CovidLand desperation we all fled. The richness of our friendships, some stretching back almost 50 years, came into sharp focus and made our shared abundance more profound than anything that we’ll later find under our holiday decorated fir trees.

We’re all back home after seven starry days and nights of bright Christmas time city lights. It was compressed, compelling and rejuvenating. The nights most times were more alive and richly colored than the days. It was a powerful redemptive flight from the desert for most of us into a modern-day version of ancient Egypt . . . we had a blast in NYC and will return for another!

– Marlow

Seven Straight Days

For seven straight days
We had no obligations
Our minds were a blur
We sure knew what to do
Willingly we lost ourselves
No one lost their motivation
Back home we’re cruising ’round our cities
Just waiting for the time to come
For another seven straight . . .

For seven straight days
We couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces
So we dressed up in some clean clothes
And headed off somewhere else
None was clueless there
No meta, simulated wood or bad liquid grain
Each night we pulled up a chair
And had one more drink for ourselves
For seven straight . . .

We all made it through
No matter what it took
Oh we want once again to make it back and through
Another seven straight days

Now we lay down for a while
Like long ago when we woke up upon the ocean
Floating on that all-powerful elephant’s back
And staring at the gray
Never was it completely still
Except the longing of our hearts
For a place to bring us back to life
For seven straight days
Seven straight . . .

Seven straight days
Seven straight days

Till then . . . we have photos to keep us company and tell us different — don’t want to feel this:

Merry Christmas!

PS: We returned to our home where a neighborhood feral cat we are fostering awaited us. Despite the concierge services we left behind for her care, petting and feeding each day, her attitude about our NYC visit said it was not enough.

Bad attitude Barbie

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