If I Took a Train….

This nearly late post in honor of National Train Day is dedicated to my blogging friend Dan who loves trains and writes entertaining informational and antecdotal posts about work, life, and life’s little challenges. Visit him here.

I have only been on one train ride although I have dreamed of taking a cross country journey in a real sleeper car and eat in the dinner car, watching the landscape roll by in a kaleidoscope of color and light. The one time was a Christmas party on board a local train that made a short trek between two nearby towns and one way was absolutely backwards, which was a bit disconcerting to my senses.  It was night and but for the decorated interior and the special dinner we had, I might not have known I was even on a train. So my dream remains unfulfilled.

Perhaps someday I will be lucky enough to travel someplace like India where the railway system is immense and thriving. Until then I must dream. And, as long as I’m dreaming, I intend to do it big. The train I am dreaming of is magical, magnificent and will carry me to another dream place of mine…Hogwarts school of Witch and Wizardry!

 

I want to push my cart through the brick wall on platform 9 3/4, anticipating the new year ahead and all the magic I will learn at the greatest Wizarding school in existence!

Because within those walls lives magic. Not just the kind of magic that flows through handmade wands and whispers that echo throughout its hallowed halls and classrooms. It isn’t just about spells and potions, incantations and brooms.

It’s about the magic of revelation, about the anticpation of greatness tinged with the fear of failure. There is magic in growing up and learning what we are capable of even in the face of insurmountable odds. We may not have magic wands, but we eventually learn that our power comes from within if only we believe and accept it with grace and the understanding of its limitations. But most of all, I think it is about the greatest magic of all…

the sweet treasure of kinship that is forged from growing up together- laughing, crying, struggling and trying to be more than we ever thought possible. I may never get to Hogwarts on the Express; but I am happy to say I know the magic of true, lasting friendship.

Still….I would love that train ride….

(Pssst….you can ride the Hogwarts Express at Universal Studios Orlando.)