Erika Magnusson Honors 401 Seminar

1 February 2013 Dear Daddy,

Mommy, brother and I are in a boxcar. The railroad track takes us where we don’t know.

Remember when we used to play train and conductor together when I was a little girl? I

guess this train is not ours to conduct. The track used to take us to a better place together.

We used to switch tracks, but you always had to help me pull the railroad switch. If I

wanted to switch tracks now, I couldn’t without you.

I guess your number on your collar was just too different from mommies, brothers and Is.

Don’t worry though… even if my number is different from yours you are still with me. I

wear my number on my collar just above the blue silk scarf you gave me!

Mommy probably didn’t tell you yet, but when you get home you have to fix the leak in

our ceiling. You’re the only one who can make the sunshine come out when it is raining.

Mommy said her prayers at home before the boxcar. I heard her whispering them to God

when I was listening to the rain hit the bucket (mommy put a bucket below the ceiling to

catch the rain). Everything was the sound of rain before we left. Even if the hole weren’t

in our ceiling it still would have all been rain. In the train window we saw a lake that

needs rain just like our crops. It was a lake that I found on the map. I kind of know where

we are. The lake was called Intermittent Lake because the rain only came sometimes. The

other times, the lake was a desert.

Dad, I saw a desert! Have you seen one of those? I couldn’t see where the lake was, or

how far you could swim if it was there. I could only see white earth. The sun was

scorching it and must have taken the rain away. Maybe one day the sun will go back in

the clouds and we can swim in the lake together. I promise to wear my lifejacket, and

then you won’t worry about me, right?

The people who lived by the lake must have not prayed for the rain to come this year.

Because ‘God is always listening’ like you used to say daddy. Maybe they didn’t know

the Lord like you and mommy do? So then, they would not have the choice to thank God

or Jesus Christ for the rain or to pray for it to come. I guess I’m like those people though

too. Brother and me hear rain all the time…the sound stayed with us even on the train… I

guess it drowns out all the other sound. But this rain, it is starting to flood our ears and

we are drowning in it. I would rather be like those people at Intermittent Lake (or the

desert now) because God has taken the rain away. I know God can’t take this rain away

right now. We are flooded in the boxcar and I’m scared were going to drown. Dad, I wish

you were the conductor. I cannot switch tracks for mommy or brother and I can’t take the

rain away either…I’m sorry.

I miss softball - you always told me I was your favorite pitcher. Dad, remember when

you used to be my catcher every day? You were my favorite catcher. Your target was the

best to hit. You always told me to never lose my arm and mommy would tell you I

haven’t… even though we’ve been riding this train for so long. I found a catcher that I

pretended was you. On the train they give us lemons and oranges. I practiced my throw

Erika Magnusson Honors 401 Seminar

1 February 2013 with a lemon because the orange was good to eat. I promise I’m trying to keep mommy

and brother healthy and I wouldn’t put that good fruit to waste. I took that lemon in my

hand like a softball, I felt its yellow rind like the red threads on a softball, and it was all

the same. I was back at the diamond with you when I threw the lemon out the train

window. I saw where it landed too, in a snarled trunk of blackened sage. Your glove was

black so I imagined that it was you catching the lemon. I wanted to be the lemon - lost at

first, but then found when I landed in your arms. I couldn’t be the lemon though. I left

you behind in the desert. The train was still moving on the track and the blackened sage

was still with buried roots.

I feel sick because the boxcars are rocking. I am going to vomit, but I won’t because you

can’t rub my back to make me feel better. Other people threw up though. It is crowded in

the cars and it smells like vomit and oranges. It doesn’t smell like lemons though. I

imagine all of the peoples (lemons) are tangled in the blackened sage of their past.

They keep telling us to keep the shades down. If you were a man standing outside the

train, you couldn’t see mommy, brother or me. You would see a train with black

windows and we would be so close without you or me knowing. The train would pass

you by and you would pass us by. We would be farther from being a family together

again. Dad, maybe you are in the dark too. Mommy, brother and I are hidden behind the

shades - naked only to darkness … where we are missing from the world we used to

know.

Mommy doesn’t close her eyes in the darkness. The shades of the train always go down,

but the shades of her eyelids never do. Maybe yours don’t either. I think she doesn’t close

her eyes because she knows she can imagine you. Mommy still loves you Daddy.

Brother still likes horses a lot. Last summer we stayed in the old horse stalls in the stables

behind the racetrack. I think that is where he started to love the big animals. But I don’t

get why? We were like horses there. We washed our faces in the tin troughs they drank

from and we slept on the same straw. Maybe this is why he loved them… because he was

‘closer’ to them…living a horse’s life. Or maybe it is because he knows a warrior hero

usually rides a horse- did he want to be the warrior hero for momma and I? Or, did he

dream of you coming for us on a horse? To rescue us? Maybe it was because the horses

got to leave the stalls and we didn’t?

Outside the train window and a long ways away from the train, brother knew there was a

wide empty field where nothing but sagebrush grew. The wide empty field was for the

horse’s freedom, but the sagebrush was for brother. If brother was a lemon and he was

stuck in the deserts sagebrush …maybe a horse would have carried him away.

Dad, I have a confession to make, the blue scarf you got me from Paris isn’t what I really

wanted. What I really wanted was perfume. I used to think that because you bought me a

blue scarf the last time you went to Paris… and the time before that… I wouldn’t care

much for a blue scarf anymore. Now, the blue scarf you gave me is all I ever wear. The

edges of the blue scarf are frayed and worn… brother pointed that out to me. But I like it

Erika Magnusson Honors 401 Seminar

1 February 2013 that way- it is like I have been wearing you for a long time now. Dad, thank you for the

new blue silk scarf and Serenade perfume for my birthday. The old blue silk scarf

remained worn and frayed, yet unraveled… and when it did unravel I would have another

from you. The blue silk scarf will never truly unravel from my neck and you are with

me… for however long you are gone.

I had to use my scarf for brother. He was sick and I gave it to him to cough in. I hope that

is okay. I would love another scarf (even if it is the same one) if you ever travel again.

Dad, here we all have to play something (real or not). I used to like playing house or dolls

with you, but I don’t want to play anymore. I just want to be me.

We wait for the day to be over here. Do you wait to? Maybe brother was right… we

should be more like the horses. We could gallop away together when the shades aren’t

down anymore. We could find a new home where there are no train tracks. The horses

will take us where we need to be even if the shades are down.

P.S. Daddy I’m sick of camping out. When will I get to go home? When will we get to go

home again?

P.P.S. I left more then the lemon in the desert. You used to tell me about a message in the

bottle, and if we were at sea I would have left you a message in a bottle…but we weren’t

at sea. Chu, Chu! Chu, Chu! Instead I wrote my name on a 6 of clubs card and slipped it

out the car window. Who is it that will find my message on a card in a desert? Only you

daddy…only you.

P.P.P.S. I am asking this for brother: when will we see him (he, who is our rescuer) and

will he ride in on an enormous white horse by the sea?

I love you Daddy.

For now… I need to let the shades fall down. Maybe soon they will open and I will see

you.

Now is not our time to play catch again.

Love your daughter.