Commuting - Tumblr Posts
Missed this #DC #Metro & all it's issues #commuting #urbanlife #travel #traveling #subway #publictransportation #publictrans #dcmetro #trains #daliycommute
Missed this #DC #Metro & all it's issues #commuting #urbanlife #travel #traveling #subway #publictransportation #publictrans #dcmetro #trains #daliycommute
I want to be able to enjoy something as purely and unapologetically as all the nice moms on the train playing candy crush on their iPads.
It should be sunny today, but the wildfire smoke is clogging the sky and my lungs. I feel like I should be able to reach up and wipe away the smoke in the air like dust off a dirty window.
Now approaching, says the automated voice on the train, and for once I almost dread getting off. The train, for all it’s failures, has some kind of air filter that does a number, at least, on the smell of burning. I get off anyway, and pass a man reading Crime and Punishment. I almost laugh. You can’t read that book in English. Or so says my Russian best friend. And so says high school me, drowning in the depression and consequence and the bitter regrets they forced upon us before we even were considered adults.
I walk up the platform, and maybe it’s just my imagination, but my eyes sting. Or maybe I’m just crying. Things rose and fell and burned and died before any of us were around to see it, but now we are. Now I am, and seeing things die just reminds me I’ll have to see so many other things to their grave, regardless of whether I got the chance to love them.
Ten minute write while I wait for my train day 3/?
I really hate the subway. It’s grimy. It’s often late. It’s loud as hell and overwhelming. It’s filled with weird people who stare at me or try to talk to me. It’s not actually all that cheap, though it is much cheaper than driving.
Every so often I see people on the train I know I’ll never see again. And then I see them again the next day, or a few weeks later, or a month or two later. I wonder if they remember me the way I remember them. The girl with the black and red hair and striking eyes and big headphones. The tall woman with the cream colored dress. The man who spent the whole hour-plus ride sitting up straight, staring straight ahead, looking at nothing, listening to nothing, his hands folded neatly in his lap. I wonder who I would be to them. The girl fiddling with her rings? The girl giggling at something on her podcasts? The girl who smiled at them on their way home? I wonder.
If the train was made of little moments like this, tiny connections where the world is suddenly cozier because oh right, I have seen you before, and you were soft and kind, then the train and I might get along better. But instead it clangs the loudest bell I’ve heard and it echoes through the tunnel and I cover my ears like a child while it approaches.
It is something I do not miss on weekends or holidays. But sitting here, watching the town fly by, I find myself wondering about the mother and her young daughter who used to read to one another every morning. I hope they are happy. I doubt they think about me.