Home > Work > The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom on the Rails in the American West
1 " How long until the ghosts catch up to me? Until they crowd around me, shouting away anything wonderful in my world. Until they grab my ankles and attempt to drag me underground, back into the darkness. "
― Carrot Quinn , The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom on the Rails in the American West
2 " When you hitchhike, people tell you their secrets. You exist in a liminal space between what is real and what is not, a sort of leaf come unstuck from an eddy. The driver feels as though talking to you, the hitchhiker, is like stuffing a note into a bottle and tossing it into the sea. "
3 " I have not "cowboy camped" in a long time. When you cowboy camp, you do not set up a tent. Your roof is the stars, and you are cradled by the wind. Insects crawl over you in the night. They pause on the bridge of your nose. They check their watches. They are running late. They hurry down your cheeks, muttering to themselves. They don't think of you, of your heavy human worries. They have their own lives. "
4 " And maybe, one of these nights, talking with Tara in the yellow light from the oil lamp, we'll stumble upon answers; answers to the riddles that are stuck like thorns into the darkest parts of our hearts. "
5 " Try to get support while you're doing this," he said, his eyes kind. "Talk to someone who knows about grief. Don't white-knuckle your way through this." I started crying, and he handed me a box of tissues. I felt like he could see right through me. "
6 " I had learned that you couldn't escape the darkness entirely, but you could learn to live above it. Grief was an ocean but you could reach the surface and bob there, where the light was. "
