Chasing the Train on the Highway

 Chasing the Train on the Highway

―To my daughter

 

View of the Kearney Archway through a dirty windshield

I’m catching up with the train
chugging east, looming its shadow
over my left shoulder
 

and it hits me that this will be
the last time I drive home from
visiting you at your apartment

 
in the same state as me
because you’re about to move
far away into that great big

 
beyond out there and finally
fully open those adult wings
we all must use someday.

 
I feel confident in your abilities,
though I know you
are restless and nervous.

 
Realize this: In life
we are always practicing because
we’re never perfect.

 
You’ll do well wherever
you’re planted. And I’m right here,
even if right here is farther away.

 
I fully believe it is my duty and
honor to serve you with
love and guidance—that is one of

 
my roles while chugging along on earth.
I overtake the train to my left
and leave it behind with

 
our memories of the past while
a wide-open path for the future
remains, beckoning and unknown.

 
The sun begins to set on today
and I hold on to hope and gratitude,
let them drip onto the remnants

 
of the day and my own tracks
headed home, chasing the train
on the highway one last time.

 

by Julie S. Paschold
aka Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

5.27.26

 

Italicized quote from Marsha Schwartz

The Bridge on the Last Day

 The Bridge on the Last Day

(view from the car during the Big Move)

June 23, 2026

In the last day of my forties, I am pensive. I’m noticing the small things, like a tiny indigo butterfly atop a dandelion. The lavender blooms of the milkweed. A soft downy feather left by an unknown songbird. I am opening my eyes as I travel.

The Big Move happened two weekends ago: I have a new vacation home but my heart is split between here and there, twelve hours apart. A letting go and a tethering, a string pulled across the countryside, a flight and a landing. Love allows us that. To stretch across miles.

In the journey into my next half century, I’m leaving behind some things but I’m still going to collect feathers. This bird still has hope. Is that wrong? I’m still building a bridge of invitation that love will follow me into tomorrow.

One of my devotionals for today says that emotional satisfaction comes from having, offering, and expressing love. This is what I strive to do. Not to satisfy myself. Because it is instinctual for me. Because I can’t help but love. In all ways. Because it is in my nature to do so.  Some people think they don’t deserve this love. Think it’s not for them. Think being alone is better than accepting something that scares them because it means showing themselves, opening up, admitting they have worth. But love can be scary. It makes us vulnerable. It takes trust. And honesty. Perhaps the ones that think they don’t deserve it are the ones that most need it. Need someone to believe in them.

We talked tonight in my AA meeting about expectations. And I’ve failed in this before. I’ve been a victim of my own expectations—turned my hope into expectations for myself, and for other people. It only led to my self-centeredness and loneliness.  And I wish I could take it back.  I wish I could apologize.  I wish I could tell those I hurt how I realize it was wrong to hold that up against them, to try to mold them into something they weren’t. I lost their trust. I lost trust in myself.

But I still build my bridge.  And I still collect feathers. And I still have hope. And I still love. And I still reach out. Tomorrow is a new day and I don’t know what that will bring. But I hope it will bring the emotional satisfaction that I loved in all the ways I could.  I hope it brings those who need that love. I hope it brings those small moments we notice beauty when we stop long enough on the side of the road and glance down, hand held out, waiting for the one to hold it.

by Julie S. Paschold
Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

6.23.26

Building a Bird: a poem

 Building a Bird

 

As I walk outside, I glance at
the ground, collecting feathers
like small hopes between my
fingers. I like to think the hope
is for you and me, though
the collecting started before
we met. Yet now some significance
has attached itself to this gathering
of down and particles that hold
the possibility of flight:
flight being something you partook of
two months ago from our partnership
and still I search through the air
for these signs of your return,
these particles of your remembrance,
this memory of a brightness sewn between us
I swore was truly there.
Now, when I reach out for you,
what do I wish to accomplish?
What future awaits the two of us,
when only one hand is outheld?
So I wait, and walk, and search,
feather by feather, hoping to build
this winged bridge for you to step
over someday. Or perhaps this pile
shall come together and form a bird
that flies to you and unites us,
leads you back to me. Or rather
I shall don this plumage myself
and fly free into the hope of tomorrow,
not worrying what it might bring.

 

by Julie S. Paschold
aka Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle

2.13.26