Day 276 – On train rides and shitty summers

When I was a child, summers in Saint-Petersburg were really… hmmm… shitty. I mean, we considered several sunny +20C (+70F) days a year an incredible luck. Rain or shine though, my parents took me swimming to the lakes near Vsevolozhsk, a surburbian town where my aunt used to live. I didn't enjoy the swimming, yet every summer weekend would find me at those silly lakes, because I never spoke my mind – the good girl that I was, – not wanting to disappoint my well-meaning parents. I also chose to pretend enjoying the screaming children playing volley-ball while all I wanted to hear was complete silence for my book (yes, I was a nerd back then, too); the lunch box consisting of the traditional cold chicken, boiled eggs, potatoes, and an occasional pickle while all I wanted to eat was my favorite home-made (by me) cookies xvorost, the perfect pairing for any book; and the wet sandy grass of the shore while… well, that should not require any explanation. It had become my second nature to fake excitement about these things. I never really asked myself back then why I was doing it, it just seemed necessary, and I did it. Today, I wonder if my parents were faking it too. That would have been just wonderful.

There was one thing I genuinely enjoyed about our trip up to the lakes though. And that is, the trip itself.

First, after a short subway ride, the Finland Train Station. For me, train stations had always been an "Alice in Wonderland" rabbit hole (so imagine my surprise when I learnt that Grand Central in NYC was built with exactly that idea in mind! at least, according to some legend I heard). I felt so tiny and helpless, so completely out of place in these strange places. No matter how quickly my mom and dad dragged me to our train, how tight their grip was, I still managed to stop the time for what seemed to be a week and marvel at all those strange people, in their strange clothes, carrying strange bags with strange foods, hurrying to their strange destinations, checking their strange watches every second. Every single one of them can easily knock you over without even noticing that you share the same material world! Or do we, really? Or maybe all those strange fast-forwarded people projections are, in fact, not very well disguised rabbits from Alice?..

Then, the ticket booth. One word – confusing! No, actually, two words – confusing AND scary. You spend a year finding the right booth and then you have to unhesitatingly blurt out the code name for your destination so that you don't create a line (God forbid, in the Soviet Union, where there were lines for everything from butter to toilet paper, there would be a 3-people line at a train station ticket counter, "Move, people, move! Don't create a line! Next! Next! Next!").

And then, finally, the train! This is the best part. An old, squeaky, green coach with wooden benches inside and a smoking tambur (a little "vestibule" in between the cars where you can stand and smoke), where my father used to spend all the time, chain-smoking, looking out the window. My mom and I always aimed for the window seats facing each other on those wooden benches. I'm not sure why we needed to face each other, if I usually stared at the scenery running by behind the drumming window and my mom was normally glued to her book. But you have to respect traditions, I guess. When I was a bit older, I would take the same old, squeaky, green train all by myself on my way to my aunt's in Vsevolozhsk. When I was a bit older yet, the same squeaky, old, green train would take me and my friends camping (read "two nights of non-stop drinking and debauchery"). When I was a bit older still, the train got replaced by the car, and I stopped making those trips. I doubt I will like the oldness, or the squeakiness, or the color of this anachronism in real life, but in my dreams I still find myself on this train from time to time.

Now, a great thing would be to understand why my subconscious decided to access these memories today, after I took a completely different trip, a trip to the Gulf of Finland, in the ice bucket (average water temperature in summer is +15C/60F) of which my family had never dared swim… I blame it on the cognac, my contemporary, and this "shitty summer" weather of today.