The Sound of the Midnight Train: Reflections on Melancholy, Memory, and Growing Older

Melancholy. What a strange word.

It can mean longing, reflection, sadness, the memory of times past. In living my life, it is not a word I have given much thought. Yet here I am, in the midst of what I suppose would be called melancholy.

There is a train passing somewhere in the darkness, and who knows where it is headed. That was my life, and I suppose it still is. There is simply nothing definite at the moment.

In this quiet, everything seems to be sitting still while also moving away. Slowly at first, then gathering speed with each passing moment.

Perhaps that is melancholy: standing still long enough to notice that time never does.

There is not much wonder anymore about where a passing train is headed. I know it is carrying freight somewhere for delivery. Perhaps new appliances. Perhaps machinery. Perhaps even people traveling toward some far-off place.

There was a time when the sound of a train in the darkness could carry the imagination with it. You did not need to know where it was going. The not knowing was part of the journey.

The radio was much the same. You waited to hear what song would come next. Maybe it would tell a story. Maybe it would open a door into somebody else’s life for three minutes and leave you standing there after the last note faded.

Now the next song will probably be more flash than story, more spectacle than soul.

Perhaps that is part of this melancholy too. Not only the sadness of things passing, but the realization that we have explained so much of the world that we have left very little room for wonder.

I once lived on Smyth Street in Plainview, Texas, across from Plainview High School. Many nights, I listened to an old radio station that came out of Shreveport, Louisiana. It was built for over-the-road truck drivers, the men carrying freight through the darkness while most of the world slept.

The announcer gave weather reports, road conditions, and whatever else those drivers needed to know. But there was something else in his voice, something I could not name then. His voice carried the loneliness of those late hours.

I would sit with my sketchbook and draw while he spoke. I wondered what surprises might be waiting for me if I chose the open road. To me, the darkness beyond Plainview was not empty. It was full of possibility.

Now, when I remember that voice, I hear the sadness in it.

Time has changed my understanding of that late-night radio program. As a young man, I heard adventure. Now I hear the miles between one human being and another.

It is 3:12 in the morning, and another train is passing through.

Its horn sounds at every side street, warning drivers and pedestrians that it is coming. It is loud, but at this hour there does not seem to be anyone there to hear it. The streets are empty. The crossing lights flash for no one.

For a moment, the horn seems almost futile.

Yet it still has a purpose. It calls attention. It warns. It announces that something large and powerful is moving through the darkness.

Perhaps that is part of growing older, or “maturing,” if we want to be polite about it.

Our horn is still noisy. We are still telling stories, giving warnings, repeating the lessons bought with time. Yet sometimes it feels as though no one is listening.

But perhaps someone is.

Maybe it is a man sitting in a church pew, making plenty of noise of his own, who suddenly becomes quiet long enough to hear.

Perhaps the horn was never meant for the whole town.

Perhaps it was meant for the one person awake in the darkness.