Last day in Birmingham; I reviewed the work of the remaining people on my list during the morning; had some lunch and took the train to Duckspool in Taunton, England. There I will teach a three day work shop.

© Pedro Meyer 2001

I have started a game, which consists of speculating and making up the biography of those who sit across the nearest seats from where I am on the train. It was not very difficult to come up with a story for the man in front of me, given that he has been reading off and on all sorts of Military magazines. His hair is cut very short and the beers come out of his bag one after the other; it does not take rocket science to conclude that this fellow must be some kind of a soldier.

While across the aisle, the couple with the white hair are definitely the intellectual type. While they do look like academics, it is not improbable that they could also have something to do with religion.

 

© Pedro Meyer 2001

The man sitting in the seat one row ahead of me, is looking out the window all the time, he seems to be in some sort of melancholic state, he looks very sad and probably has a problem with either his wife or girlfriend, or both.

I have always found that everything associated with trains is sad if not downright tragic. The stations inevitably remind me to World War II scenarios. Jews being packed off to concentration camps. People fleeing from the front or from their countries. I am sure I must have internalized some of the experiences my family had when I was a toddler being carried from station to station in a market basket, as we fled Europe. I can't discard either the influence on my unconscious that I had from seeing films from that era. Anyway, for me trains and stations are a far cry from how I feel at airports. The latter, are about optimism and feeling good. No pun intended, they are uplifting.

© Pedro Meyer 2001

 

 

 

 

I arrive in time for supper and meet with some of the photographers that are going to be in the workshop.

 

Pedro Meyer
July 1, 2001
Birmingham, UK.