A sound somewhere in the neighborhood appeared before my awareness and I understood something illusive. I ordinarily hasten to fill in the gaps in some kind of life-story rolodex. Was it a train? But the train tracks are miles away across the slumbering city. Was it a fog horn? But the Pacific coast is thousands of miles away beyond the mid-western plains. And the Nova Scotia cemetery where I slept, overlooking Lunenburg harbor, even further away in space and time.
Yesterday I wrote a blog that I’m not going to post. It was an allegory—in the guise of an anatomy of a recent divorce—mapping the recent merger of the New Mexico Parkinson’s Coalition with an Arizona-based Parkinson’s organization. But I realized that there is no conciliatory story that can heal the hurt that a few individuals are experiencing.
The plain fact is that what is needed, and what has never happened, is a requiem to the lost future of an independent organization that didn’t make it. No blame. Not even necessarily a loss in the wider sweep of things: including the future of services for the New Mexico Parkinson’s community.
I just want to pay my respects to the people who have been collateral damage—those who followed with the best intentions and those who were left behind—may the future bring you happiness and fulfillment of your dreams.
In the 23 years I have lived here I have rarely heard a train, but occasionally in the summer when the windows were open and the conditions just right
I have heard a distant train at night. The AmTrak & RailRunner tracks are about 4-5 miles away at their closest. The conditions that may matter are wind direction, humidity and barometric pressure. And perhaps the lack of local traffic.