In 3quarksdaily

Notes on Trains, Nostalgia and a Surprisingly Long Journey Home (Excerpt)

It is already dark when the train and I leave Stockholm behind at around three pm. The big stars and triangular candlesticks with which Swedes almost uniformly adorn their windows at Christmastime break the monotony of the night, turning a dark which might otherwise be unsettling into something cozy, inviting. The snow sits heavily on the roofs, something out of a fairytale. 

My phone is low on batteries and I don’t know when I will next be able to charge it, so I put it away. Instead, I look out. I see the family eating dinner at their kitchen table, the old man shovelling snow in his garden. Like the angel in Wings of Desire, I am a voyeur, now: peeping into other people’s lives, moving through other people’s places. The angel in that movie stands on top of buildings, or below in underground tunnels, moving up and down the city that he no longer belongs to: a birds eye view of the lives of which he cannot be part. I once wrote about that angel, about how his movement up and down the city signals historical depth, the many layers of the eras passed and lives lived in that very spot. By contrast, I move horizontally through the many lives that I will never know: the train and I leave only wind in our wake, like a ghost who has shot through the room.

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