The Journal | Between Departures

A collection of writings from the road—some tied to specific places, others floating untethered. Observations on movement and stillness, solitude and memory, the way time shifts when you are always leaving, never quite arriving.

The Last Station Before Dawn

February 19, 2025 Somewhere between Berlin and Warsaw

There's a certain quality to the air in train stations at 4 AM. It hangs suspended between yesterday and tomorrow, thin and electric. The fluorescent lights cast shadows that don't belong to anyone in particular. Everyone is in transit, existing momentarily in this nowhere space, this temporal junction where destinations matter more than present location.

I've been sitting on this bench for three hours. My train was delayed due to snow on the tracks somewhere to the east. The few others waiting have formed a silent community of the stranded—occasional nods, shared glances at the unchanging departure board. A man in a charcoal coat keeps checking his watch, though time means little here. We're all just waiting for numbers to change on a screen.

The station café opened at 3:30. The coffee tastes like it was made yesterday and left to contemplate its existence all night. I drink it anyway, cupping the paper between my hands for warmth. The barista looks like she's sleepwalking, and perhaps she is. This far into the night, this early into the morning, the difference between waking and dreaming blurs...

Signals Through Static

February 11, 2025 Desert highway, Nevada

The radio picks up fragments as you drive. Voices fade in and out, carried on waves that travel hundreds of miles just to dissolve into the night. Some words reach you clearly, others are lost to distance. It becomes a peculiar kind of poetry—sentences with missing pieces, conversations you're only hearing half of.

I've been driving for nine hours straight, the landscape unchanging: distant mountains, scrubland, occasional lights from small towns that appear and vanish like mirages. The radio has been my only companion. Somewhere around midnight, I lost all the clear stations and found myself adrift in the static between frequencies.

It was there, in that liminal space of white noise, that I heard it—a voice so clear it startled me. Just three words, spoken as if directly to me: "Are you lost?" Then static swallowed it again. I pulled over, the engine still running, and sat in silence for a long moment. The question hung in the air...

Room 27

January 30, 2025 Motel off I-95, Connecticut

Motel rooms have their own specific loneliness. It's in the generic paintings bolted to the walls, the sealed plastic cups by the sink, the bedspread that has witnessed a thousand temporary sleeps. Everything designed to be forgotten, to leave no impression. You are supposed to pass through without a trace.

I've been in Room 27 for two nights. The snow has blocked the highways, and I find myself in unexpected stillness after weeks of movement. There's a strange freedom in being stranded. Time opens up differently when your plans are suspended.

Last night, I found a notebook in the drawer beneath the Bible. Its first twenty pages had been torn out, but on page twenty-one, someone had written a single line: "If you're reading this, you're exactly where you need to be." The handwriting was tight and careful, pressed hard into the paper. I've been thinking about it ever since...