Leap and Shuffle

I've taken to walking down abandoned railroad tracks. It turns out they are good places to think these strips of solitude that run along the edge of town. There used to be trains running between here and Halifax, carrying people with stories of their own toward lovers and family and friends, or away from lovers and family and friends. I think of them and their stories. And as I walk I find myself pushing past trees that have taken root along the rails, pushing my way deeper into silence, deeper into solitude, deeper into history. And I think about the workers who laid this track. I wonder if they carried a picture of someone in their pocket - a sweetheart, a mother, a daughter, a sister - and if they took it out to look at when the work seemed like too much. I wonder if they missed home. For some unknown reason, a strange personal superstition, I suppose, I only step on the ties. I focus intently on this task, and suddenly that old childhood singsong rhyme floats into my mind. "Step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back." I smile, because my mind stores strange and useless information like this and because here there are no cracks, or perhaps there are only cracks, and I am not entirely sure what this means. This practice makes walking difficult though. Sometimes the ties are too far apart, sometimes they are too close together, so I have to leap and shuffle along this path into the past. And I find this appropriate, for the weight of history always seems to make us walk a little oddly.