Trains
I've been commuting to the city using BART from Concord. There have only been a few times in my life that I've been regularly taking a train, but every time I get a chance, I love it. What I like most of all is making up stories about the people that I see in transit.
I see an older black woman. She has large overalls under which she wears a green fleece. She's got a nearly matching stocking cap with camouflage patterns. She looks at everyone with a fierce expression. She's probably never been given anything, especially the benefit of a doubt. Everyone who looks at her feels sorry for the hand that life has apparently dealt her. This is nonsense and she knows it, that's why she looks back at you, right in the eye: fierce. She would tell you in no uncertain terms to keep all those preconceived ideas you have about her to yourself1.
There's a lanky white guy standing in the corner. He's so skinny he looks brittle. It's almost painful to watch as his Adam's apple bobs up and down when he swallows. He's got an overgrown beard and seems to be disheveled but his shoes give him away. There's nothing accidental about $90 Puma SPEED CAT SLs, and upon closer look his shirt's got the brand new faded look that they sell in Old Navy. His probably came from GAP, not Old Navy.
There's a lady standing next to me, eyes fixed downward. She's pretty but her age shows: creases on her upper lip and where her throat meets her neck. Unlike the other folks who seem to put a lot of time and energy into their appearance, she's dressed professionally, but simply. I wonder what she thinks about as she looks at the ground. It's the end of the day and most people have fatigue in their look rather than the perturbed look of one who has left something undone. Or maybe it's her children, I imagine, and how she's going to make it to an event. Or an unruly teenager for whom the concept of commuting and working is abstract and unappreciated.
We all stand there, next to each other, each a separate universe whose imagination spans a larger space than the physical world. We are all so much the same in our ferocity, pretensions, and fragility. I wanted to touch the downcast woman on the shoulder and say that it was life, we all go through it together. But that would have been too weird. It would have broken the unwritten rule that although you can stare into another person's universe, you must have permission to intervene.
1Insert colloquialism here.
5:58:38 PM 
|
