This wasn’t supposed to be a reflection on the 1987 John Hughes film, though as I type this sentence, I am beginning to reconsider this decision as my mind falls back to scenes of Steve Martin squaring off with Kevin Bacon for a taxi, getting into verbal fisticuffs with a Thanksgiving-enthused rental car lady (gobble gobble!), and berating curtain ring salesman Del Griffith for not amounting to anything more than an insufferable Chatty Cathy doll. Those aren’t pillows. I could go on.
If you haven’t seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles, finish this letter, go watch it, and report back on your experience.
As a Canadian, watching a movie about American Thanksgiving, which takes place long after ours has passed and we have moved well into the Christmas season, is unlike watching any other holiday classic because this holiday is not my own and I therefore carry none of its baggage. Instead, I can fully enjoy the odd couple that is Steve Martin and John Candy (God bless John Candy) as they traipse their way across the United States, attempting to reach home for the holidays by any means possible.
Underlying the hilarity, as in all good comedies, is an undercurrent of truth, and PTA reminds us that while destinations are important, so too is the journey. And this brings me back to my original reflection - the wonders of not the travel destination but the act of being in transit.
Like a character in a children’s book who sets off on an adventure with their belongings tucked into a checkered handkerchief and tied to the end of a stick, the modern journeyer must also fortify themselves with the requisite comforts: sweatpants, neck pillow, and headphones - check. Magazines, snacks, and $10 airport coffee in hand - check. Onward, traveling soldiers.
Each journey is an emotional one as we veer back and forth between the torturous and the delightful, like a funhouse experience in which you can’t quite tell whether you’re having a good time or about to cry.
But for all there is to complain about - delays, endless fees, crappy food, cramped seats, more delays - to be in transit is to be spoiled, for we travel the distances of Magellan without the pesky disease, dirt, and violence. Our sorrows? Recirculated air drying out mucus membranes, taking advantage of the few centimetres of legroom to stave off DVT, determining whether you should wake your seat mate whose slumbering corpse blocks the path to the bathroom or scale them like Everest.
We are baby birds straining our necks to receive our pittance as complimentary thimblefuls of weak coffee and mini cookies are passed out by merciful air stewards which, along with an endless supply of television and movies, keep us pleasantly sedated lest one of us begins to lose it at 30,000 feet.
Trains are the evermore charming choice; there is freedom - to stretch your legs, to not worry about plummeting to your demise, to avoid security officers repeatedly x-raying your mini shampoo in the event it turns out to be an ingeniously compact atomic bomb. If you had that kind of talent you wouldn’t be flying economy. It’s just you and a picturesque window, a Thermos of coffee, and a packet of sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, until your seatmate reaches over and taps you on the shoulder, a look of concern having overcome their face as they fear you may be bored and here is a magazine, please, no, take it, read it, yes, enjoy. Your declinations a failure, you wonder how long you’ll have to passively flip through its pages, eyes skimming but not absorbing, in order to satisfy them.
By the time you hand it back and get to your provisions, your coffee has cooled and your sandwiches are soggy but you nevertheless resume your fantasy of lounging in the non-existent dining car from a bygone era. As you zip through industrial wastelands and other miserable landscapes that allow themselves to be scored through by train tracks, a limp slice of tomato slips from your sandwich and lands in your lap, but then you think back to Magellan, gasping his last breaths as he lies impaled by a poison arrow, and think my goodness, am I ever lucky.
Thanks for reading. See you in two weeks.
A delightful read.
I took my first train trip when I was three going from Ottawa to Victoria with my mother to see my grandma. We had a sleeper. When I was 15, my mom put me on the train and I went cross country and back for the summer. The next year I went to NYC for a weekend. My mom took a lot of flack from friends for that one. Over the years I have train travelled a lot:Two months with a Eurail pass; nine months with a husband and pre schooler crisscrossing India; 10 weeks in China with them as well. Train travel is awesome. Thx for writing. I see The Great Railway Bazaar is now on Kindle. When we crisscrossed India I always read big books as they could double as a pillow.