TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

(i wrote this paper for a class, so references to authors which aren't credited are due to that fact) (also, all is true!!!)

nine o’clock in the morning and I’m taking an inventory check on the subway bench to distract from the pair of middle-aged sweatshirt men doing “the nod” at me and refusing to stop staring and grinning from across the track, also the one who walked past and did the up-down look and murmured, “nice, whatchu got on there.” and so this leads to the obvious question, why did I choose to wear a short lace dress and gold embroidered boots on a long train ride to a beach town, long island, montauk? the first of the WHY questions I ask myself and others ask me and I fail to answer. the best I can do is say that I always dress warm and sensible for the journeys and tend to fall asleep in my headphones, which does not lend itself to writing or observing. so I wear the dress to keep alert, but the real effect is that I feel idiotic and idiotically enraptured with my reflection across the train window and get the haughty mentality of a girl who is not taking the train to wander, but to go to her home in the hamptons and feed her purebred a nice carrot.

the feeling of digression comes naturally with the rhythm of the train; I am facing backwards and when I sink in my seat it gives the impression of the ground pulling out from under me. my thoughts are scattered and my notebook page is limited to one-line observations such as, “’Harold’ on the side of a building—why?” and “mounds and mounds of grey gravel in rows,” or “feeling of stuck, all these people trapped by the bottleneck of NYC.” I’m simultaneously trapped by the obligation to work and the real reason I enjoy long train rides: the feeling of being enclosed in the non-location of motion, and with the lack of location I feel a lack of responsibility.

in planning, I decided I was going to be like theroux: I was going to take a train as far as it would take me, through towns with exotic names (jamaica, babylon and SPEONK(!!!)), I was going to read books, drink liquor and talk to strange people. and maybe that’s the second answer to the WHY of the dress, if I’m busy being hannah in sweatpants or a shapeless t-shirt, it also means I am hannah who doesn’t know what to say to strangers and fears the law, and that would not do. I bring with me the food and pens I will need to sustain the journey, as well as a library copy of antonio skármeta’s novel, the postman, which serves to entertain as well as fire my loins embarrassingly and leaves its cloud hanging over the remainder of the day. also, gulliver’s travels, which I thought would be fun since, hey, we’re both travelling!, sadly, it was not.

getting back to (or beginning) the action, I leave my room at 8:45 a.m. feeling like christmas morning, grapple with subways for too long, and narrowly catch the 9:46 to montauk (transfer in jamaica). I note the constant alternating of the industry with idyllic stretches of lake, neatly mowed hampton lawns and fields of rusty beams. I glimpse people out the window and am thankful that I only see the pair of sweet nine-year-olds holding hands for 3 seconds because now they can stay that way forever; I never need to see them eating corn dogs or screaming at their mothers for buying the wrong kind of fruit snacks. I note what actually IS by the waters of babylon (a high school, several trees, a parking lot, the railroad station) and don’t really feel like weeping much.

three stops before montauk, two things happen: one—a group of noisy children board what was almost a silent train, two—I look between the gap of seat and window and see a hand (male, about my age) holding a camcorder. the kids shout about snacks and fishing, the hand puts the camera away and I observe that the hand belongs to a body with a head of thick black hair. I am instantly curious about the face behind the seat. I like to think I know better than to believe in train romance, but one too many times watching before sunrise has ruined me, and the skármeta I am digesting isn’t helping anything either. the kids are unbelievably annoying, and I stop trying to inwardly apologize for hating them. defiantly, I take my first swig of rum and coke, despite my intended rule to not start drinking before noon. it’s the difference between these kids and the couple out the window that makes me more aware of the elusive beauty of travel—it is far easier to love things briefly and ignorantly than to have them so close as to know all their faults.

montauk draws near with the necessary pomp; I watch out the window as the land gets narrower and ocean and bay are on both sides. this development is loudly documented by the children and it reminds me of the thornberry character on theroux’s journey (“aha! another connection to class,” I think). the pull into the station is slower and more deliberate than any of the other stations, as if to tell us that this is truly the end. I find satisfaction in stepping over the actual end of the track that began so long ago.

and then I finally see the face of the black haired camcorder boy and decide it is good. we realize we are the only former passengers eschewing the taxI services, so we walk the mile road into town together. he (paul) also has no answer to the WHY of montauk, and his camcorder, like my notebook, is probably just an excuse to be a stranger in a distant place. this story doesn’t end in a crazy makeout scene or the exchange of numbers, but instead in a quiet lunch in a circular diner, followed by a friendly parting. I realize with relief that my great adventure is not destined to become a romance that would no doubt be the product of people feeling the need to fall in love on a train because movies have told us that is how it goes. so we part, and I change my shoes.

in flip-flops, I go to the montauk chamber of commerce and meet a petite woman who is a fount of energy and enthusiasm for montauk tourism. pamphlets are thrust into my arms, she wails concern that such a beautiful girl is here ALL ALONE! and she’s from MICHIGAN! and ohhhhh, those are such LOVELY boots! and so, with my maps and sailing information, I excuse myself from her aunt-like fluttering. “to the beach,” I think. at the beach there is the mandatory toe-dip in the ocean, the pacing around and feeling poetic, the sipping of my drink. I sit down on the sand even though i’m shivering and read and write until I notice I have nothing to say, so I get up and walk. I look at the tourist map and see that just a short jog down the montauk highway is a lighthouse, and at the lighthouse, The End. my mind is made up: to the lighthouse.

incidentally, “to the lighthouse” is not only a virginia woolf novel I have never read, it is a song by patrick wolf that I happened to listen to while putting on my dress and anticipating montauk around 8:15 that morning. as I walk down the shoulder of the road, I sing the refrain in the loopy voice I use when nobody is around. I mark landmarks on the map, but they seem farther apart than they look. after a mile of walking, I see in the corner, “map not drawn to scale.” but patrick wolf is telling me to go to the lighthouse, there cannot even be a question, to the lighthouse my friend, we must go, we must go! with this and my rum and coke as the beat of my steps, I decide: I can’t go back now, but to go forward could take hours. my solution is hitchhiking.

yes, hitchhiking. my boots strung over my shoulder and goosebumps on my bare legs, I hold out my thumb tentatively (never having done this before) and worry that someone will stop. eventually, someone does, a man in a pickup truck with a shovel in the back. fantastic! so of course I hop inside, his name is dennis and he has a daughter about my age. he thinks i’m stupid, with good reason, and kind of crazy, but of course he means hannah of the dress is crazy, not me. he tells of his own hitching days and actually uses the phrase “walkabout,” to which I want to yell, “CHATWIN, son!” but wisely don’t. his friendliness compels him to not only take me to the lighthouse, but take my picture and drive me back into town. ah, eastern hospitality.

the winding down of montauk day is progressively less glorious, with the exception of some fried shrimp which I eat because montauk is a seaside town and it seems proper. I miss the train out and make two more trips in and out of downtown to get ticket money. three hours of train riding turn to four, the fourth hour due to the possibility that the train may have hit somebody. the darkness outside the window inhibits my outdoor observation, and left with no desireable reading, the last 4 hours of my trip are vainly spent observing how nice my legs look in reflection across the aisle. the hannah in dress clothes persona has become a veritable narcissus, and the last pages of my notebook are a wasteland of sexual energy the day-to-day me would never have dared to write.

I forgot to mention that rain was predicted for this day. in the one show of proper preparation, I brought an umbrella, which of course guaranteed clear skies until finally, 1:25 in the morning, as I am walking the last block before home, it starts to sprinkle. this insignificant fact somehow justified my WHYs of the day—the umbrella was there to match the dress, to keep me awake, to make me ready for adventure, to hitchhike, to cover my legs in cold sand, and the best train ride moment where I look across and instead of seeing my full reflection, the darkness of my dress fades into the shadow and all I see are my head and legs which seem to be perched in a white floral bush. I am wearing white flowers, motionless, and the new me of the dress is now another new me of the bush. I realize that these versions of me can keep duplicating forever, as long as I am a stranger.