These days I cling to things, little pieces of happiness like the renewal of credit on a travel card or the arrival in the post of an envelope containing shuttle bus passes for the month. These pieces of happiness exist in direct opposition to the equal moments of mini-despair when the credit on one’s travel card dwindles towards zero and the last boxes of the last shuttle bus pass are ticked. I feel sadness in something so slight as the moment of saying goodbye to a friend in the evening knowing full well that I will see them again in the morning. Does everyone feel with this intensity? Does everyone feel a sense of loss for what once was long before we had cellular phones, facebook, twitter, whatsapp and the plethora of other social media through which cheap and often meaningless communication is shared.
And so, sitting on a train travelling from New Haven, Connecticut, back to Boston I feel a terrible sense of loneliness. I spent the afternoon with a very lovely American lady of Polish descent and then said goodbye to wait in that beautiful New Haven Union station that seemed so haunted and hollow. The rain now beats against the windows and Greg Graffin’s ‘Millport’ plays over my noise cancelling headphones as we travel through woodlands that remind me of an emptiness that awaits. And yet how dare I complain when I see so many hopeless and needy people stranded in every city that I travel to? I have all I need…