Leaving is a magic trick

thinking about themes on the train to Newy

A reminder that I record all my Substacks, so you can listen by pressing play above if you’d prefer not to read.

It’s a Sunday afternoon as I open my laptop to type this, and I am at Sydney Central on platform five, waiting for the train to take me to Newcastle. I touched down in Sydney at 11:30am arriving from Nashville via LA and then Fiji. I left Nashville at 2:50pm Friday.

I decided to write my Substack a day earlier than usual, despite how loopy I currently feel. I just drank a matcha and I have a massive Monday at work, so it’s now or never. I think when you’re in a state of flux you sometimes write better. Or, at least, more interestingly.

My family and I counted at least 80 American flags on the 70-mile drive from Bowling Green to the Nashville airport on Friday. Eighty two if you include the little patch on a security guard’s uniform and the one on my brother’s t-shirt. It sounds like a high number, but we counted lots of little one tucked into new cars for sale at a dealership. Those upped the total quite a bit.

I counted American flags on my way out of the country because I bet America has more public flags than other countries and regardless of your thoughts on patriotism, flags are interesting. Plus everything means more when you know you’re leaving. Leaving is a magic trick that makes you appreciate things you never would if you stayed.

As the train leaves Central Station I wonder how many Australian flags I would see if I looked out the window the entire journey. A short glance out at the Inner West Sydney Suburbs tells me exactly none. If I were an observant intelligent alien dropped into my current seat and I had to guess where I was in the world my only clues might be the Paperbark trees and the occasional splotches of autumn foliage whizzing past, reminding me which hemisphere I’m in.

”It’s awfully slow” a passenger pipes up about the train we’re riding. The accent and her grumpy tone would give Australia away as well. Yet multiple languages and ethnicities are all around me on this carriage. You could easily guess somewhere in Asia. Ain’t the world fascinating?!

Why do so many Americans love their dang flag so much? My parents told me that the Democratic Party was recently handing them out for free in attempt to push back on Trump supporters trying to claim ownership on it.

”MAGA doesn’t have a monopoly on the flag!”

I saw an upside down American flag in New Orleans, a sign of distress and protest, but I also saw plenty waving wild and stress-free. My little American family comes together in my parents hometown of Western Kentucky, at the crossroads of the South and the midwest, many would say the heartland of America. My brother just bought his first house here as well, where a big American flag flies out front, to match plenty of others in his neighborhood.

Australians are often amused at the way I can still recite the pledge of allegiance. (I started my school day with it every morning from kindergarten well into my high school years.) A New Orleans girls’ choir sang the “Star Spangled Banner” last weekend at Jazz Fest. The crowd intuitively stood and some put their hands on their heart; that’s what is done where we are from. Even in Trump’s America that many believe is damned to hell, I don’t hate the American flag, and I don’t hate American pride.

I don’t hate America either. I have liked it less and more at certain points in my life. Some things I have never loved about America, like our government’s eternal imperialistic tendencies. People often talk about the current administration meddling in other countries’ affairs, like it’s exclusively a Trump thing. Are you kidding me? Imperialism is as American as apple pie.

During my last few weeks in the States, I would speak with Americans of a certain political persuasion, and they predictably reiterated to me how lucky I was to be in Australia right now. They aren’t wrong. Yes, I am lucky to be in Australia, but also, I’m just lucky. Maybe it’s my cheerful disposition or other factors out of my hands, but I love the universe and in return it looks out for me. Knock on a paperbark tree and sing praises to naively-raised-me who knows that most folks are kind and have good intentions.

Hornsby is on the horizon and I can’t wait for the train to go across the Hawkesbury River, at which point I’ll listen to some some cowgirl music and look wistfully out the window. I love Australia; I love America too. Matter of fact, I love every place I’ve ever been. As I stood in the customs line to transit through to Sydney in the Fiji airport, I was the lone passenger to cheer for the two ukulele-playing airport workers who sang in their native language at 6am for the weary travellers. It’s never too early to extend a welcome.

My delusional imagination allows me to pretend to be the heroine in my own life, to tune into the details that I want to, like little American flags dotting SUVs at the car dealership and orange leaves by the train tracks.

A three hour train ride nudges even the most practical of people towards reflection and retrospection.

My mind wanders towards my last week in the States and how my brother and I attended church with my parents last Sunday. I went to atone for all the drinking and dancing I was doing the week before in Nashville and New Orleans. My brother probably went because I was going. It was nice to be there, the four of us in the pew together like we used to do, when Zach and I were growing up.

The amazing poet and writer Darby Hudson said on one of his podcasts that many writers repeat themselves, reiterating one idea in different ways, and how that’s okay. I felt relief listening to him say those things. As I look out into the valleys and lakes and the Lantana, I recognize that most of my writing could be drilled down into three themes: where we’re from, where we’re going and how we’re getting there.

My Gran, rest her soul, her voice regularly pops up in my head. I hear her extolling Dolly Parton. One of the reasons she loved her so much was, no matter how famous she got, “she never forgot where she came from.”

Yeah, I got some issues with it, but I don’t hate America. The longer I live and the longer I’m gone the more my past defines and intrigues me.

Imagine telling 22-year-old Alex as she boarded the flight to Melbourne, “you think you know who you are and where you’re going but, baby girl, you don’t have a clue!”

(There’s a fourth theme I regularly write about, how I’m an idiot.)

Nearly 100 American flags on the way to the Nashville Airport, surely more if you got off the interstate. Now as my train leaves Morisset Station I am almost done with the 100 mile journey from Sydney to Newcastle.

Thomas Wolfe said “You can’t go home again” but also home is where the heart is. This lucky, tired heart of mine is just another fool in a state of flux on another train somewhere, missing where I’ve been and wondering where I’m going.

PS My wonderful brother made a button, so that kind folks with money to spare can tip me at their leisure without feeling the pressure to regularly pay! Thanks Zach!