In the Sleeping Land

A crossing of the Trans Siberian Railway: "My berth companions were an old man and two very large women in even larger dresses. From its hiding place beneath the floral print sea that surrounded her legs, one of the women produced a bag with lunch. She tore off chunks of dried meat and shared it among us. She then scooped globs of egg and mayonnaise from a jar into small tins that looked as if they were once ashtrays. The ritual took time and we watched her do it. When it was over, we smiled and ate silently with the flesh of our legs pressed together. The afternoons were spent looking out the windows and letting the tea go cold. My fingers would take walks along the horizon of pine, jumping over the occasional river. Sometimes they would splash and feel the cool. When the train stopped we sat on the ground outside and smoked cigarettes while soldiers stamped our papers and searched the train for smugglers. Sometimes this lasted for hours. Sometimes longer. Nothing was said. The open places of this planet - sea, desert and steppe - have a curious power to pause time, or perhaps more accurately, to lull the mind into a state of focus on what is present. Whether it is the lack of visual stimuli, the soporific motion of wave, dune or grass, or something yet more subtle, it is hard to say. That many of the great meditative traditions have grown out of solitary spaces strikes me as something more than a coincidence. From my own experiences in solitude, however, I have to say that the defining feature is not spiritual awakening, but a pronounced and desperate desire to find surcease of boredom. In absence of noise, I’ve found, the untrained mind will surely make its own."