Did You Make Your Connection?
I sit next to the woman on the train who struggled up the last flight of stairs. She's breathing heavy as she laughs at her own wheezing. Her hair is in braids, and she says, “I can tell you'll look real pretty when you’re my age, with the silver starting in your hair and going all the way through. As long as you keep yourself up with that soft skin.”
I laugh back and tell her I know I should, but it's hard. We talk about morning meditations and ice cream for dinner. She falls into friendship with me as fast as a summer rain. Fretting, she worries that it will be dark by the time she has to get home and she'll miss the news. Her mouth is sliding sideways from the anesthesia at the dentist's office and she almost dribbles the beet-carrot-orange juice she’s drinking onto her lap. She is warm and kind and fully present which distracts me from my motion nausea as we sway our hurkey-jurk ride home. She reminds me of another woman on the train.
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The long wait ended in a tidal wave of human commuter frustration and impatience shoving its way into the car. I was washed against a pole and to keep myself from falling into the plaid-shirted man with the nose ring and wool cap’s lap, I reached out. I grabbed her hand warm, soft, and strong.
“Oh hay!” I sang out, deciding this time to embrace the awkwardness instead of hiding in shame like my introverted child-self begged me to do on a daily basis.
“Hey honey, glad I caught ya,” she said back, laughing.
“Me too! Didn't want to crush this guy.” Dude didn't even look up. Awash with an array of humanity bearing down on us from all sides, no one but us looked at each other. Their physical selves were tangled together, so they each retreated to their inner sanctum to quietly seethe out the rest of the ride. But not us; we looked into each other's warm brown eyes, and reveled in the joy of each other's joy.
“This reminds me of Japan,” I said. And so I learned she was stationed in Osaka, while I had spent a semester in Kyoto. We compared train cultures and discussed what we miss.
Still laughing, always laughing she said, “I'm glad I met you.”
I say, “I'm glad you held my hand.”
She said, “Well you know what they say, once you go black...” and gave me her most knowing and self-mocking smile.
The laughter that had started to die came back with a vengeance. To the dismay and great embarrassment of all but my connection and I, I threw back my head and howled at the cliché she completely owned. I looked at her smile and knew I could stay on that train if I wanted.
“I have to go home,” I said.
“I know baby, but I am happy to have met you,” she replied.
“You have a good life,” I told her.
“Already am!” she called after me as I departed.
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I wonder why I can find such warmth and acceptance from these two women I knew for a half a minute, and such a disconnect with others. I look at the faces of my family and friends, waiting to find that kind of welcome, but rarely getting it. The hearth fires burn in a perfunctory manner, and their love is a prerequisite by comparison. Some people talk of love at first sight, but what I’m after is acceptance at first sight. It does makes sense that the more you know someone, the more you see their flaws, and goodness knows I have them. But to have that feeling like you did when you were small enough to be carried from the car to bed after a long drive, and just know you were seen, that someone bore witness to you in your entirety and found it complete. I don’t know if we ever get that again, except for those fleeting moments in a sea of unknowns. I've made my peace with it, but it makes me appreciate the train all the more. And ice cream for dinner will just have to be my consolation.