Thoughts from a train

Wrote this in my notebook travelling to Cambridge the other day...
I came back from Bodeaux yesterday. There is something about travelling that always makes me reflective; maybe its the music, and the accompanying sense of being the protagonist in a Hollywood romcom. Looking out the window, the landscape flicking by, like snapshots of other people's lives, holds endless metaphors for our lives, the metaphor of a journey. Or perhaps more than anything its simply because there is little else to do.

On route from Bristol to Paddington

 So there I was, thinking these thoughts, in the back of a french car, u2 on the radio, with a filmstrip of Southern France reeling past. Everyday in the Desmars family had passed the same. Wake, relax, save energy, go for a walk in the afternoon, comment on how tiring it was, agree on a more relaxing day tomorrow, sleep. Oceane, 17, had never drunk alcohol, never been out after 8 without an adult, probably never broken a rule. It's almost like they're waiting for something, waiting for life to start for real. I always used to believechildhood was a preperation, an aperitif, a chance to learn and improve myself as much as possible untill that moment. 18. When the oppurtunity was lost, and I would be stuck as i was for the rest of my life. I thought all this without realising I thought it.

       But this is my life. I have been living it for the last 17 years. That is probably nearly a fifth, and after 80 its not much of a life anyway. So why save the fun for later, why be serious now, and focus on a good future, when today is just as important? That's what I so desperately wanted to tell Oceane, but I thought it might be mistranslated.

      A really famous person once said

"Bridget Bardot said "I want to do three things in life: smile, be nice to people and eat icecream". I would't like to die knowing I could have eaten more ice cream"

    Although I can't decide if this is deliberately shunning smiling - I am a huge fan of smiling - and without embarassing myself by revealing the celebraty, I get what they mean.

      It's early morning now, and a flourescent rape-seed field is reflecting the light through the window. The carriage is deserted, but I love moments like this. When all the important things in life become streched and compressed and distorted, and time stands stilll, and is dreamy. And then I feel like I, an impossibly ordinary 17 year old, can emphasise with the like of Anna Kerenina and Manon from that old french film. All the huge things, like life and birth and the universe, seem to spiral in towards this one moment. THe greenneess of the fields, the delicate roseness of the skies, the rock of the shabby train. And then the moment passes, the sun is eclipsed by a long tunnel, and we stop at swindon.
      A girl walks in, with really long blond hair, enviously tall and skinny, and opens too killl a mockingbird. One of my favourite books, and I want to say something, ask her about how she finds it, but I don't want to be that annoying person on the train who doesn't shut up. And that is how I know the normal world is back, and suddenly I feel foolish for feeling so special a moment ago.
     And so before I ramble any more, I think i'll wind this up. It must be the early start this morning getting to me. But first back to Oceane, and her family, becuase I've been unfair about them, and they really were lovely people. I learnt a lot. I discovered that my greatest fear is not having seen, travelled, done enough before I die. After all, I don't want my last thought to be that at least I didn't get too tired.