Switching Gears

I’m back home in Falls Church after taking a week out of town.  Mid-August is a very good time to be away from Washington.  Months ago, I booked myself for a weeklong yoga intensive with a well-respected Iyengar-style teacher.  For weeks before I was beefing up my home practice to try to be prepared, since the man leading the seminar has a reputation as a precise and demanding instructor.  Sadly, the course had to be cancelled when our teacher suffered a serious injury the very evening before the course was supposed to begin.

So there I was last Monday morning, all dressed up in my yoga clothes and nowhere to go. When you’ve spent that long building up to something it takes a while to switch gears.  I was so flummoxed it took me a good hour to get my head around it.  I had come up to the retreat center in New York’s Hudson River Valley planning to be there all week, and I really didn’t want to go home and go back to work!  So I checked the train schedule and called my family in Western New York to see if they’d mind an impromptu visit.  My mother was flatteringly happy to hear I’d be coming, even though I gave them only a few hours notice.  The rest of the week passed not with a grueling yoga practice but with home-cooked meals and catching up on all the family news.

I was reminded again of how much I enjoy traveling by train.  I spent many hours on the train up to Rochester and then all the way back to Washington at the end of the week, and it couldn’t have been more pleasant.  No check-in hassles, a big wide seat, and huge windows with scenic views.  The Empire Limited runs from New York’s Penn Station up along the Hudson River to Albany and then straight west through all the old industrial cities of the state:  Schenectady, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.  Along the river I saw mountains, forests, and dozens of water birds including no fewer than four bald eagles in a single afternoon.  Traveling west from Albany the views were a bit more noir-ish.  I saw many empty old industrial mills, faded ghost signs painted on old brick buildings (“Uneeda Biscuits, 5c”), and strangely quiet city centers.  I also saw lots and lots of cornfields in between.  That ethanol stuff is changing the landscape of rural America—from what I saw it seemed there was no other crop planted.

No photos, I’m afraid, since I was traveling without my camera.  I didn’t expect to want it at a yoga retreat!