Railroaded

Tracked journey
Toronto, ON, March 2009

About this photo: It's "on the road" week here at Written Inc. Tell all your friends. And send them here.

Travel makes me reflective. I'm not entirely sure why, but perhaps it's because it gives me lots of quiet time alone to think about the minutae of life - precisely the kind of things that usually get snowed under in the course of a regular day.

But riding the rails - or a pair of wings, or taking a road trip - far from home makes for anything but a regular day. And when I'm in between here and there, I like to linger over the visuals of the journey, because nothing ever seems to look or feel the same way twice. So to make sure I didn't miss anything on this particular trip to Toronto, I toted my camera along and let the rails blur under me just as we exited Union Station and headed for home.

Funny how I can close my eyes and feel the moment I took this picture, yet it's been nearly a year since I leaned hard into the train's window, held my breath and squeezed the shutter. Yet given how the rest of the year played out, it may as well have been a lifetime ago.

Photography has a remarkable ability to make time stand still in that regard. There are days I wish it actually could.

Your turn: Can a picture freeze time?