train thoughts

[maribou]

Traveling on trains, and being alone (separated from loved ones), opens me to humans in general. The strange, the mundane, those captivatingly like someone I could love and those gratingly unappealing.

I feel a warm affectionate curiosity about them all, find myself uncalculatingly speaking the right words to encourage the loud and forthcoming to forthcome some more, find myself smiling and quirking an eyebrow at the quiet readers, dreamers, starers-out-of-windows, wishing there was an easy way to call forth their stories without running the risk of appearing to be a threat. (But then, I don't want to make them talk - the ones that draw me are those who are obviously enjoying the movement of the train, the time alone, the book or thought trail they're immersed in.)

At Union Station in Denver, there was a young man, no older than I am, no younger than 22, with 2 silver hoop earings and a soft denim shirt. His hair was close-clipped, maybe an eighth of an inch, and his smile was patient. He read, deeply, covers wrapped around themselves, some one of the Penguin Classics - I recognized the book's design, but couldn't make out the title without making my interest obvious.

At Union Station in Chicago, a different young man sat next to me - close-cropped hair, denim shirt, glasses. Voluble. Lacking in basic social graces - 'not quite right in the head', but not dangerous, merely overinsistent. In love with chess, excited to be visiting his friend, a dog-food shelf stocker.

In the dining car, I was seated next to a senior VP of United Airlines. Across from us, a middle-aged archetypal Wisconsin couple: quiet, friendly, kind, unused enough to a glass of Chardonnay with dinner that they properly noted and appreciated it. I said little, though that warmly, but found myself utterly charmed by the success these people had in making a good, an enjoyable and dinner-enhancing conversation. Anecdotes balanced, areas of common ground embraced, possilbe minefields skillfully avoided. A pas à quatre of gentle courtesy.

The seat behind me now is sometimes occupied by a bearded young guitar-player (or at least I assume that someone carrying a guitar case can play the guitar I assume is within). He wears a T-shirt over a turtleneck, and manages to imply soft flannel somewhere in the texture of his wiry gingered hair. I wonder if he would play his guitar for me if I asked. He quite possibly might. It might prove the beginning of a beautiful friendship, to be conducted in the future through email and mix tapes and strange greeting cards decorated with kite-paper and squid ink. It may be that he, in our few smiles and desultory few words, projected the same sort of story about this shaved-headed girl, alternating between A. S. Byatt and a cross-stitched Eeyore, wriggling to the unheard beat of her Walkman and watching the dark stream past.

The strange adriftness, openmindedness, of trains might once have led me to spontaneous adventures, enigmatic intimacies, wild perigrinations. Now it leads me as cloase as I will ever get to understanding those who prefer anticipation to experience. I wouldn't want to live here, but it's a nice place to visit.

Comments

[corivax.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it. If it was cliche, it wasw well-written enough one doesn't notice. :)

[maribou]

I *could* list all the clichés up there, since they all made me grit my teeth at myself at least once - but instead I'll just say it's good to know it's not a universal reaction.
Thanks.