1. Beginning: from Thruway Bus to Train
aka How I Spent my Sunday
An intro, hopping on trains and getting started.
Sunday, Oct 27, 2024
10:21
I’ve picked back up to finish reading Lauren Elkins’ “No 91/92 notes on a Parisian Commute.” It’s a collection of daily notes on her bus rides mostly to and from work. It makes me long for my old life — even in Philly, taking metros and trolleys, though E (my boyfriend at the time) wanted me to drive most of the time.
I always find it amusing that that the thing I miss most about living in Prague is the public transport. Being “in the world,” as it were.
In Prague, I was out most days. Walking miles on nice days — MILES. Hopping the metro and trams with ease and familiarity. Wandering through all the neighborhoods, P1, P2, P10… Vinohrady, Malá Strana, Anděl, Hradčany…
Nowadays I spend most of my days in the house, the car. I only walk to walk the dog. I drive to a place, I walk around briefly, I buy things, I return home, I sit on the couch every night. I take pictures of the same places over and over. I always wish to change this, to get back to how I was, and I know it’s within my control.
Inertia.
Bodies at rest stay at rest.
Be a body in motion.
So now I try to sit on trains for an entire work day to go somewhere and recapture my “city life.”
I need a change.
10:38a
On the thruway bus to Boston South Station
I have always arranged my travel around bathrooms. I drink a lot of water. So I always grab aisle seats so as not to disturb people with all my getting up and down.
On the bus, the man behind me has been hacking and making noises that make me cringe. (My headphones are charging.) My OCD flares and I panic when he’s in the bathroom for a while. After 45 minutes, I decide it’s safe to go in, but now he’s gone in again. I sigh against my bloated bladder. I am used to waiting.
12:17p
Outside Boston South Station
My hands are cold, hard to write. It’s 51 degrees but “feels like” 46, and everyone outside is wearing winter jackets but I’m spending my one-and-three-quarter hour layover till the train walking the vicinity of Boston’s South Station…in a short sleeve shirt. I have a sweatshirt, I just don’t need it. The sky is clear and bright, and the cold air hits my skin in an invigorating way.
The buzz of the city — my happiest moments have always been in cities. Wandering. Flâneusing. Amsterdam. Prague. Berlin. Philly. NYC… I live by foot. I can maneuver better and more quickly on foot. My blood pumps. I want to write. I want to capture it all.
Now I’m back in the station writing. There’s one of those older chatty couples — the wife specifically, talking to a man with an accent. She’s telling him about her son’s meaty tomatoes that he’s growing in his backyard garden.
13:51p
On the train from Boston South Station to Union Station in DC
NOTES FROM THE QUIET CAR
When I booked this trip, the only seats available were at a table, which I don’t usually like. I feel awkward facing someone I don’t know (hell, I feel awkward facing people I do know). An attractive man with a German accent is across from me.
When we boarded, before the train left, an older couple was talking to each other loudly. I glanced at them pointedly but held off on glaring unless they kept it up once the train moved. (This is the quiet car, after all.)
They were replaced by a couple speaking a slavic language. The man sat across the aisle in the handicapped seat. They talked too much. But again, I decided to wait until we moved. 10 minutes in, his phone went off and I looked at him sharply.
A mother and teen daughter got on at the next stop. The daughter was upset that they were each in a window seat across opposite sides of the aisle. They settled as the conductor came in to scan tickets.
The slavic-accented couple asks repeatedly for different seats—their assigned seats have them separated. The conductor tells them no, because the man is sitting in the seat reserved for the disabled and he can’t stay there. The woman keeps talking, and I hear the conductor say “I have to write down every single seat change. There’s a Trump rally in New York so there’s heightened security.” Something must have registered on my face, because the woman sitting catty-corner to me at the table asks me what he said. After I repeated it, she then asked if I was going to New York. (I was not.)
The couple moves to their seats elsewhere, in a different train car.
I text the news about the rally to my husband.
Somewhere in the quiet car, another phone goes off but is quickly silenced. We stop at and then leave Providence, Rhode Island. I have 5 hours and 50 minutes to go.
People open the overhead bins to get their bags. The loud shock of the door banging shut and snapping into place periodically shatters the silence.
Food wrappers.
Keyboards clicking.
Whispers, hushed tones.
Laptops being stared down in a manner that seems too serious for a Sunday train ride on a beautiful fall day.
The occasional phone held to the window, an attempt to capture the the beauty of the day, the scenery rushing past. The water, the ocean passing by.
I continue to write, not wanting (but wanting) to take my own pictures, still so afraid of seeming twee, a cliché.
I look out the window again and see a blur of russet leaves swirled with gold and brown.
17:10
I’m disappointed when someone boards and takes the seat that had been wonderfully empty next to me for a couple hours. But then she left after a couple stops.
NYC is always chaos. Once we stop there, the aisle is blocked within minutes from so many people moving slowly with their large suitcases, many with airport tags.
I watch the sun sinking lower as we leave NYC’s skyline behind. I realize the woman sitting catty-corner to me has been chewing the same piece of gum for the past 4 hours.
Another man sits in the seat for disabled. The conductor tells him he needs to move and the man implores, “I have a bad knee.” The conductor tells him there will be someone taking that seat soon but let’s him stay until then.
I wonder if any women ever try to take that seat?
Someone a row ahead of me is playing something on their phone on speaker. I was annoyed but didn’t want to make a scene. It stops after a few minutes.
17:59
The quiet car, the train, is peaceful as the trees become silhouettes against a pale peach strip of sunlight giving way to the palest blue. Two contrails streak the sky.
I choose a playlist to suit my mood. My legs ache, I want to move, and yet I feel like I could ride this train forever.