The Iron Pulse of Distance
The smell of hot metal always brings me back to the train tracks behind my childhood home. It is a sharp, ozone-heavy scent that clings to the back of the throat, tasting faintly of pennies and dry, sun-baked dust. When a train passes, the ground does not just shake; it hums a low, guttural vibration that travels up through the soles of your feet, settling deep into the marrow of your shins. It is a restless sound, a rhythmic clatter that speaks of places you have never been and people you will never meet. There is a specific loneliness in that vibration, a feeling of being left behind while the world hurtles toward a horizon you cannot yet name. We are all just waiting for the next departure, our skin prickling with the heat of the engine and the promise of somewhere else. Does the earth ever truly stop trembling after the heavy steel has finally moved on?
Ana Sylvia Encinas has captured this feeling of transit in her work titled El Tren. The way the machine cuts through the landscape reminds me of that same metallic hum I felt as a child. Can you feel the vibration of the tracks beneath your own feet?
