Rail Retreat, Chapter 1 -- Boarding

Wilderness is not just a place; it is also a state of being. If happiness means being happy and sadness means being sad, then wilderness means being wilder. Look it up, and you'll find that the primary meaning of wild is "natural." In turn, "natural" comes from the Latin nasci, meaning "to be born." Words like natal, nativity, and native come from the same root, all referring to birth. Wilderness, then, is not only the nature you find outdoors. It can also refer to your own true Nature -- the You that is closest to your birth. This inner wildness is the untamed truth of who you really are.
(Gerald G. May in The Wisdom of Wilderness, 2006, p. XIX)

So, I have boarded the train -- my own little encounter with wilderness; hoping not so much for "wildness" in the way I might have otherwise thought of it, but certainly something like my "own true nature" -- the "me" which, according to May, is closest to my birth. As I told my beloved on the night before my leaving, I have felt myself grow "shallowed out", which I suppose is something akin to drifting away from the true nature, the "birth-self" that is deeper, more grounded than the self I have, of late, become. Already the swaying of the train along its track -- not at all unlike a ship in turbulent waters -- has begun to dislodge from me the steady assurance I left in the station. This is foreign land to me -- first missing, then stepping into my car, only to feel totally lost; climbing the stairs and immediately taking a wrong turn; exploring to find bathrooms and showers; running into dead ends in pursuit of the dining car; settling down to dinner in the company of Max whose first impression offered little promise of conversation. And yet Max turns out to have grandparents in San Angelo, scarcely an hour from my childhood home -- and visited there last summer. And he lives in Kansas City, a block or so from one of our favorite getaways. That he loves "cage boxing" and shares an apartment with a musician in a heavy metal band more fascinated than repelled me.

The full moon outside my window and the occasional pause at a station serves to ground and orient me. And now it is about time to recruit Lisa, the steward assigned to my car through to Los Angeles, to assemble my bed. A bit of wilderness, perhaps, all its own.