As I reflect on the insular attributes of a cardboard room, I must tell you that today was the second day that my train car lacked heat. I would venture to say it was colder in the car then my walk to work. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of taking a train to work... people tend to have routines. They stand by the same door, sit in the same cars, same seats. They get up at the same time every day (either 10 minutes before it stops to get off first, or calmly arising when the train pulls into the station.) You can set your morning and afternoon by this pattern. The chick that looks like Hagrid's Girlfriend? She sits in one car back from me... but tends to leap ahead of my right before the stairs on our way out (long legs you know.) The granola chick that has a folding bike? She sits backward everyday and gets out at 125th. The guy who either has OCD or some kind serious medical issue (I'm dying to know), he sits next to me.. very distracting. You get the drill... so when we sat down to a freezing cold car we of course said something -- to each other that is. Like "I'm not about to change my routine." "If we move, then we'll just be messing up someone else's routine, and they'll look at us like we would if they came into our car. " I would rather moan about it." "Its better than last week when the heat was blasting to 120 degrees and we had to open the windows and it was so loud." "Ya! and we didn't get up then either!" There's something so comforting by this camaraderie. Like we're all in this together. Like if that conductor shakes his head as he sees us shivering in our seats, I know that's he's shaking his head at all of us. We'll probably never know each others names, or where we go once we leave GCT. But every day we get a head nod or give a smile--and when the thermostat on our little car goes wacky, we'll persevere in our crazy together.
Sorry so sparse today.. I actually have lots to tell you all but I'm a bit frazzled. I'll get back to you later this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment