The Everyday Train

and an alternative definition of kinship

For the past three weeks I’ve been commuting more days than not, an experience fresh enough we’re still honeymoonish. I endeavor to leave just early enough that I don’t have to sit for an extra cycle of the light while the rail train whips by, but most days I’m late enough to wrangle open my thermos of Earl Grey and attempt to affix my name tag to my shirt while the crossbar drops and the lights flash.

Most of the train cars are vacant, and my eyes alternate between clicking from one car to the next and allowing them to blend into a blur past me, as instructed by a Buddhist in a time before, when I thought knowing something about meditation would help me to meditate.

See your thoughts? You can pay mind to each one, rolling it between your neurons and consider the shape and color, or you can invite the thoughts to swim by in a torrent - acknowledged only for the mindchatter they are.

Wednesday’s train had a solitary passenger in the sixth car of seven. She’s wearing glasses and her purse sits in her lap, clutched by her left hand as she gazes vaguely south, which is where I’m going and not the direction she’s headed. She has no earbuds or visible headphones, so I imagine silence as her companion.

This light rail originates to my right and has a long and winding journey towards downtown, which I can barely see far off to my left. It makes sense that no one is on the 7:15 - it’s too early for the 9:00 am starts unless they plan to connect somewhere down the line - a feat I find unimaginable in Denver. Were I to try to journey my way from origin to destination, it would take me two trains and a bus and then a mile and a half walk or uber, and likely more than two hours each way.

Ick. No thanks.