'The path they cut was three or four times wider than the tracks themselves, and over the years it filled itself with wildflowers and grasses - fireweed and milkweed, goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace, harebell and goat's beard - so I walked along the rails each morning as if walking through a meadow. By September everything was in seed. The seed heads shook their contents over you as you passed and the burrs clung to your clothes. Some days thousands of milkweed pods burst open together, triggered by the heat of he sun; thousands and thousands of small silent explosions repeating themselves in salvos down the miles of tracks. On those days I walked through clouds of silken down drifting about like smoke in the morning breeze.
I passed through all this as if I was sleepwalking. I was conscious of it but I did not really see it. At school it was the same; Miss Carrington would lecture us on arithmetic or grammar or history or geography, and I would sit, politely attentive, and not take in a single word. I would be watching the dust motes, perhaps, as they hung in the broad bands of sunlight that slanted through the classroom windows"
I passed through all this as if I was sleepwalking. I was conscious of it but I did not really see it. At school it was the same; Miss Carrington would lecture us on arithmetic or grammar or history or geography, and I would sit, politely attentive, and not take in a single word. I would be watching the dust motes, perhaps, as they hung in the broad bands of sunlight that slanted through the classroom windows"
