I wish I traveled by train more often. There’s something magical about watching everything sweep by, almost like a living gallery of landscapes. Such beautiful scenery. I didn’t do much on this eight-hour journey except listen to the same playlist and stare outside. Well, I suppose I did do one thing. Something I might have done for the very first time in my 21 years of living.

People watching. There’s this girl on the train. I keep glancing at her reflection in the window, trying to catch her eyes, though I don’t know what compels me. What’s she thinking right now? What brings her here? I wonder if she’s the type to prefer a brie sandwich over anything else or if it’s just what she had left in the fridge that morning. I wonder why she took a window seat, if she fought for it. Is she also headed to Amsterdam?

She has such an intriguing air about her. Her eyes hold something, an old sadness maybe. Or is it a sort of wisdom? I can’t place it.She reminds me of someone, someone I knew so well once. A person who could make you smile without even trying—through silly things, really, like saying “no”when you asked her to pass the salt. The kind of person who starts laughing the second she sees someone’s lips twitch into a grin. She’s one of those people who turn the world lighter, who make you laugh in the way only they can. She used to be, anyway.

Offenburg, Germany. The smooth, gliding rhythm of the wheels gives way to a jerking halt. People are standing up, shuffling around, gathering their bags and bustling to catch their connecting trains. I realize I hadn’t noticed how late we were running, and my own reflection catches me off guard—a smudged imprint of a previous overly excited passenger’s forehead muddles the view. A mix of hazy reflections and the passing scenery. She’s still there, still looking out, and her image merges with the world outside—blurred trees and lakes and fields blending with her silhouette. A bright blue lake passes by, sunlight scattering in patterns on its surface... It reminds me of how her eyes used to glisten when she laughed too hard at a terrible dad joke. Then a never-ending sunflower field stretches out lazily. It fades away in the distance as if the bright yellow flowers merged into one another. Leaving a simmering sea of yellow. Fields like these always made her dream - of another life entirely. She’d imagine a girl with brown hair dancing through the sunflower fields with a mesmerising smile on her face, running down the country road, and racing the birds flying above as if she was one of them up there. I never realized, she was always the brown haired girl in the dreams. Nobody else.

Now an evergreen forest looms by, trees tall and stoic as if they’ve lived a hundred lifetimes.She admired things like that—things that weathered storms we only read about in books.

The whole scene is fragmented—clouds reflecting in the window, fleeting glimpses of houses, and somehow, her face mixed among them.For a moment, I’m not sure if I’m looking for shapes in the clouds or searching for her features. It’s strange how clearly I can see her here.

The sudden jerk of the train brings me back to the stale smell of the train. I glance at the girl on the train again. But she feels different now, so unfamiliar. Unlike the girl lost in the scenery. I feel her here with me again instead, sitting with me. Reminding me what she used to be like. What we used to be like. She would flutter her eyelashes every two seconds as if she was afraid to keep them open too long. She always admired her eyelashes. She would boast about it to her mother, and get a knowing smile in response. She had such pretty brown eyes. Like the girl’s on the train. Brown like the baked chestnuts on Christmas markets that every kid gets so excited about. She would always talk. There was no stopping her if she started. They used to call her the home radio – ‘It’s quite great actually, we don’t have to bother turning on the radio, we can just listen to her go on and on and on.’

But then something happened and the dreams became nightmares and the blinking became a way of washing tears away and the girl who was always ready to share a story suddenly wanted nothing to share with the world.Somewhere along the way, imagining another life became something a lot more than it should have.

She would always listen to music. It took her far far away. So far that she struggled to find her way back.

She’s always taken a window seat. It’s her way of getting lost without having to go anywhere. She likes to watch trees and houses blur by, to feel like she’s in a movie scene, imagining her own soundtrack and crying behind the glass. She takes the window seat so she can watch her own reflection when the train slips into a tunnel, or when the light outside fades, so that she can trace the contours of her face in the dimness. It’s as though she’s waiting for something, as if somewhere along this route, somewhere between Switzerland and Amsterdam, she’ll finally find something that makes the stops and starts of this journey worthwhile.

For a moment, I close my eyes, letting the noise of the train and the passing scenery blend together. When I open them again, I catch her reflection once more. My reflection. And then it hits me. Through the familiar ache in her gaze, I realize I’ve been seeing myself. I’ve been watching my own journey as if from a distance, tracing my own steps. I am the girl who found herself, slowly, on this train from Switzerland to Amsterdam.

So here I am, staring back at my own reflection, and something shifts. Somewhere between Switzerland and Amsterdam, somewhere in the haze of fields and lakes and forests, I’ve come to understand myself. I realized I needed to get lost in my dreams and nightmares to be who I am today.To be able to say no, to stand up for what I believe in, to stand up to protect who I am. And I realized all that love in my heart I wanted to give to someone else should’ve been given to myself a long long time ago.

I’ve come to realize I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything.

I take a deep breath - tracing my face in the window - and whisper, ‘I love you.’ It’s a strange feeling, but one that feels real, like the slow unfolding of my journey between Switzerland and Amsterdam.
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2024.