City Kids

I saw a family leaving the train together yesterday. When we approached their stop, they all stood up, and the mom took out a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. All four kids put their hands out when they saw it, and she put a dime-sized drop in each one. Then the dad held his hand out, and she gave him some, and she took some, and they all put it on. I heard some of the kids asking for more and watched them fight over the bottle as they left the train.

Headed to Harvard

When the train pulled up in Park Street the other day, the doors opened to release a screaming twenty-something white man in an underwear T-Shirt.

"WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME!?" He screamed and sprinted out the doors. A few other people followed him out, one of which was a Korean man in a starchy white dress shirt and an MBTA badge.

I was relieved that this guy was leaving the car I was boarding. When we pulled into the next station, however, he appeared again just before the doors closed, and sprinted back in. Apparently he was dodging from car to car.

"STOP FOLLOWING ME!" His voice broke when he yelled; he sounded like a singer in a hardcore band. This time nobody entered behind him, and I wondered for a moment if he wasn't just hallucinating and paranoid. People made way as he paced up and down the train, and his voice softened while he pleaded between sobs.

"Please will somebody help me? I'm goin' outta my mind here, people... I got this fuckin' MBTA guy followin' me... Please I... Oh sorry, I see you got kids - I'm not tryin' ta be freaky or somethin', I just need some help! This guy's followin' me like a weirdo. Please, somebody just help me." There was a clear stream running from his nose, and he wiped the moisture around his eyes with a bundled up tote bag.

We all stared at the space in front of our feet while he cried on and on. Nobody said anything. Nobody asked what was wrong with him, what he needed help with. The girl across from me raised her hand to her forehead as if she needed to block the sun from the guy's direction. At one point I heard him mutter something about a drug program, but mostly he just kept asking for help. "There's so many people, I just don't understand why someone won't help me..." I wanted to be that someone. I wanted to help. But I was paralyzed.

When we pulled into the next station, the MBTA agent walked slowly up to our car, and the crying guy ran out, wailing again."I gotta go to Harvard, but I'm leavin' now 'cause you won't stop following me! And I can't afford to get back on! But I'm leavin', okay!?"

The agent strolled wordlessly after him, and we rolled on toward Harvard without them.

Heard While Entering the T

A little girl turned to her mom on her way to the escalator and said, "Mommy, can I walk up the down stairs?" Her mom said no. Moms are no fun. Safety shmafety.

Knock Knock

Today the little girl in the laundromat told me a joke.

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana!"

"Banana who?"

"Banana you're putting those close in the washer, all those clothes!!!" Then she cackled triumphantly into my face and said, "I'm a good joker!"

Rainy Day

Today in the coffee shop everybody was all wet. The ladies had eye makeup on their cheeks and the guys' fancy pants were all splotchy from puddles. I looked ridiculous in my clashy rain boots and scrunched up hood. This is one reason that I love the rain; we're all forced to deal with how the rain makes us look. We give up on our hairstyles. We stop looking for our reflections in store windows. And I think we're all a little relieved.

Leash Kid

I was trying to go down the stairs in Goodwill today, but I got stuck behind a lady holding a little boy on a leash. She waited for him to take each step before stepping, and together they monopolized the diameter of the stairwell. We were all forced to take the tempo of our little pace-setter. The brown leash was clipped to the little boy's backpack, which was really just a stuffed monkey with straps and a leash clip. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the stairs, a little girl about the same age was running around screaming, "Mama, come here, come here!!"

Paula

I was starving when I finished my grocery shop yesterday, so I decided to sit outside Whole Foods for some snacks before the journey home. I took the only available chair, between two occupied tables.

"Are those cashew peanuts?" I heard in my left ear. I turned to the lady at the table. She had stand-up, short, gray hair and two of the widest, bulging bug-eyes I'd ever seen.
"Yeah, they're cashews."
"Oh, I used to love cashew peanuts." I was about to offer her some, when she continued, "I can't eat them now because I don't have any teeth."
"Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense," I replied. "Do you live around here?"
"Over in the elderly housing there. Well, other people can live there too, ya know, it's low-income type housing."
"Well, it's nice that you have a good market so close."
"Yeah, I can't walk too fah 'cause I have a degenerative disease in my spine. The doctahs wanted to put me on that OxyContin, but I don't wanna be takin' that stuff, so I just do the Vicodin now that the Codeine doesn't work no more."
"Yeah, that's strong stuff. Do they give you a ride over here then?"
"Yeah, I got the ride. It's good now [that] I gave up drivin'." She lit a cigarette. "So ya bring that food with you or ya buy it here?"
"Oh, I just got a bunch of groceries. I've got a whole bagful in there," I said, gesturing to my bag. "We needed some ingredients to make dinner."
"Oh. You and ya boyfriend?"
"Yeah."
"Does he cook, too?"
"Yep."
"And how long ya been goin with this guy?"
"About two and a half years."
"Uh huh. And does he ride a bike, too?"
"Yeah." I had switched from cashews to an apple by this time.
"You're sure eatin' a lot for someone who's about to make dinnah!" she laughed. "You're gonna spoil you're appetite."
"Well, I think it'll be a few hours before we eat dinner."
"Yeah. Well, I lost five pounds. I been on these meds that gimme such an appetite, it's like ya want seconds before ya even finish ya first plate! So ya go off those, ya lose some weight, and then ya gain it right back! I wanted ta quit smokin', and my daughtah tells me, 'Ma, ya can't quit smokin' and lose weight all at once. Ya gotta do one atta time.' "
"Right, that's a lot for your body to adjust to all at once."
"Yeah. But you don't gotta worry about ya weight. You look good."
"Well, I keep active. I ride my bike everywhere and do yoga, so I get lots of exercise."
"Yeah that's good. Yoga's where ya on the floor and ya move ya legs around this and that?" She crossed her arms over her chest and gestured with her legs.
"Yeah, kinda."
"And does it hurt?"
"Yup, sometimes."
"But it's supposed ta be relaxing, isn't it? Like a meditation?"
"Yeah. It's like a meditation."
"So ya pray in there?"
"Um, I suppose you could."
" 'Cause it's like a meditation, the teacher tells ya what ta do?"
"Yeah, exactly."

She told me they had yoga classes at the senior center, but that she couldn't participate because of her legs. I would have thought her spine would be the issue, but she didn't mention it. She wanted to know if I went to school. She couldn't believe that I was out of grad school and twenty years old. "You gotta baby face, dear, that's good!" Then she started asking questions about my experience with music.

"Do ya write songs, too then? Write your own music?"
"Not really. My boyfriend does."
"Oh, he does!" Her face lit up. "Did he write you a song then?"
"Yeah, he did!"
"And was it pretty?"
"It was beautiful."
"And did ya sing it?"
"Yeah we played it together."
"Isn't that somethin'." She looked down at the sidewalk for a moment.
"That's how we met actually. He wrote a song and he needed a soprano."
"He needed a soprano! And outta alla them he picks you!" She started to giggle. She was tickled. "How romaaantic."

And then I heard another voice from a cloud of smoke to my right say, "How romantic!" I turned, realizing there'd been another silent participant in the conversation. She was a woman around 40, and her skin was weathered to match her voice - both had endured a lifetime of smoke inhalation. Her oily black hair was pulled back tightly into a bun, with a few stray strands sticking to her ears and cheek. She wore hospitality scrubs - a splatter-painted white top and solid navy on bottom.

"So ya gonna marry the guy?" asked the woman on the right.
"Maybe. I don't know if I wanna get married," I replied.
"What'd she ask ya?" asked Paula from my left.
"She wanted to know if I'm gonna marry my boyfriend."
"Are ya scared?" asked the younger woman. "I used ta be terrified of marriage."
"So are you married now?" I asked.
"No. I never did get married. I'm still terrified of marriage." She laughed a little, which made her cough. I turned back to Paula.
"Were you married?" I asked her.
"Yeah. But not for long. He was abusive. I got outta there."
"Good for you," I replied.
"Ya never know what they're like until ya live with 'em. In those days, ya didn't live with 'em when ya were dating 'em. Nowadays they just live with their boyfriends when they're dating 'em! But ya know, I have a daughter. She came in from New Hampshire this morning with my grandkids."
"Aw, I bet that was fun!" I said.
"Uh huh." Then she began the proud litany of introducing her grandkids. She knew it so well that she made the kids' ages sound like part of their names. "Jeffrey 13 plays trumpet in the mahching band, Jenna 9 just had her ice skating lesson yesterday, and little Rob - ya know my daughtah didn't know he was comin'! She says, 'Ma, I'm pregnant again, and we didn't even plan it.' I says, 'Hon, don't you worry, this is wonderful, I'm so happy for you.' And sure enough, he's almost two now and he's into everything! It's just incredible..." She trailed off into more wide-eyed chuckles.
"It's wonderful that they come to see you down here," I said.
"Yep. Well, it's quartah of five, aren't ya scared to ride in traffic?"
"No, I'll be alright. But I should get going and wash this sand off," I replied, gathering my stuff.
"Alright, well I hope I see you again," said Paula.
"Me too," I said, shaking her hand and taking another mental picture of those huge gray eyes. "Take care, Paula."
"Okay, you, too! I'm gonna go in and buy some cherries."

She tossed her cigarette and leaned into her walker. I unlocked my bike and waved goodbye.

Stuff Lying Around

I was fixated with a hair curled up on the bathroom floor in the yoga studio today. I thought about how it was somebody's hair, how it used to be on someone's head and they used to brush it and shampoo it, but now it was grossing people out on the floor. And I thought how a hair is something big and obvious, but there's all these smaller pieces of scabs and nail clippings and boogers that we leave wherever we go. And smaller than that are the things we can't even see - little skin cells and germy exhalations and other microscopic pieces of people that become a part of the air. When these things leave us, they become debris - like somebody's lost bag of chips on the sidewalk. Yet we wouldn't just give them up for no reason. I wouldn't just grab a perfectly good fingernail and fling it to the wind. But it would be strange for a person to collect these droppings or touch them. So I am wondering, when does something become anonymous? And why are we only attached to that which is attached to us?

The First T, Again

Nobody on the train sat next to anyone else this morning. People rested their heads on their hands in different ways; some let their heads hang down, collapsing into gravity. One girl didn't open her eyes until she got up to leave the train, when I saw the huge dark circles under them. Nobody even noticed me staring around, looking for inspiration.

Today it is difficult to be awake.

Odd

I just saw two men in blue hospital scrubs trying to hail a cab. They were both holding big lamps. One of the men looked korean, and the other looked eastern european, but the lamps were the same. They had glossy, brown bases that took two hands to hold and poofy lampshades that forced the men to lean back while they looked down the street. One driver slowed down and then passed them up, but the next cab was up to the challenge. I had to laugh as they worked their awkward cargo into the four-door Ford.

Related and weirdly fascinating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshade

The Darndest Things

The laundromat I use is run by a Japanese family, who also seem to run the restaurant two doors down. I see them going back and forth between the two entrances. Today the mother and daughter were in the laundromat. The little girl was doing math problems in a workbook while her mom watched trashy TV. When I went to get my laundry out of the dryer, the little girl was watching me. I smiled, which turned out to be the authorization she'd been waiting for, because she suddenly burst out.

"Do you wanna see a trick!?"

"Sure," I replied.

"I can sit on that without even falling!" she said, pointing toward a row of single load washers.

"Wow!" I tried to sound amazed, but I had no idea what she was pointing at.

She climbed across the row of washing machines and set herself up squatting in the top of one, and smiled with her teeth clenched and her eyes scrunched; I almost expected her to say 'cheeeeese!' But she didn't say cheese. Instead, she said:

"This is my toilet!"

"I hope not!" I replied, and we both continued laughing as her mother grabbed her out of the washer and scolded her in Japanese.

Splits guy?

There is a man who calls in at the yoga studio and tries to get people to say the word "splits." I've never spoken to him, but I have watched other people talk to him for ten minutes at a time, answering question after question while exhausting every possible synonym of the forbidden word.

While I was working today, the elevator opened to a tall, thin man with a shaved head. His face was stubbly, and his eyes were bright blue, barely visible under a pair of drowsy eyelids. It's always a little out of place when people show up between class times, but on top of that, he seemed to have no agenda whatsoever in arriving.

"You have the yoga here?" he asked me in a thick Russian accent.

"Yep. Our next class is at seven."

"I look for yoga. I want know if you have sch... schedule?" He gazed around lazily.

"It's all online. I can write down the website for you, if you like," I offered.

"It's all up here, you see," he said, pointing to his head with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I see," I replied.

"I see," he repeated. "And I see that you.. also... do this yoga?" His eyes shifted back and forth between my eyes and my right arm.

"Yep." Oh goody.

"You teach yoga?"

"A little, but I'm not certified yet."

"You teach here?"

"Nope. I'm not even certified. I just teach some friends and students."

"You teach me?" He tilted his head coyly. "You teach me to do this... what is it... splits?"

"No, sorry. But you can see the schedule there and find a class that works for you."

"And what is this called, this..." he opened his feet wide and gestured toward his spread legs with both hands. "I don't know all of these words so good in English."

"Hm, I'm not sure what you mean," I said. I knew exactly what he meant.

"Yes," he said mysteriously, and started to laugh. He mumbled something in Russian.

"Sorry?" I said, playing dumb.

"I don't know the word in English."

"Oh. Well, that's alright. Thanks for coming in!" I smiled at him; I pretended not to have understood a thing.

"Okay I check online, okay? Thank you," he said. He turned for the elevator and pressed the button.

I thanked him and watched him leave. I was relieved and a little exhilarated as I thought over the encounter. It's amazing how universally we all communicate, even without knowing the words so good in English.

Growing Pains

There was an R&B beat filling the train station today as I headed down to the platform. It came from a short, stout black man, who was wailing away on a cover of Usher's "You Remind Me of a Girl." I'm not sure why, but I almost always sit on the bench next to the performers. A few families crowded around as we waited for the train. One group consisted of two brothers, a mother, and a grandmother. The ladies were clearly entertained, and the grandma gave the singer some change in his tip bin. The older son was around 13. When we got on the train, he stood holding a pole, while his family all sat down in a row. He turned to his mom, looking crabby.

"Well, that was awkward."

"What was?" she asked.

"That guy!" he replied, surprised that it hadn't been glaringly obvious to her. "That guy," he repeated. His mom told him that she thought it was nice. He mumbled something about money to his little brother, who ignored him and cuddled up to their grandma.

The Mind-Blowing Movie Event of the Summer!

The camera zooms full on the spinning top. Will it stop spinning? Will it? ...Stop? Or maybe it won't? Wait! That's the end!? Chuckle. Chuckles all around. Two and a half hours later, we all love a good chuckle.

Meanwhile

...while I discussed Russian literature with an interested neighbor on the train, a couple across from me was having a heated argument. The fighters looked strung out and filthy. They swore and wrestled in their seats. Everyone on the train tried hard to ignore them. Or at least, tried to look like they could ignore them. A mom down the train tried to distract her two little girls, who stared hard.

I continued talking to the man, trying to be heard over the combined noise of the train and the fight. I wished he would stop asking me questions, because we were way beyond the accepted volume range of small talk. The train quieted as we pulled into the next station. The couple stood up to leave, and I saw that they were holding hands now and exchanging soft kisses.

My new acquaintance had also noticed their exit. "A little bit of PDA is healthy," he said. I laughed into my shoulder as the train moved on.

War and Peace

Yesterday I started reading this famously gargantuan book. It is difficult to read it on the T, starting and stopping to tune in to my location. But it is even more challenging to focus when everyone around me sees the front cover as a stimulus for conversation.

"Oh, wow! I can't believe you are really reading the whole thing!"
or
"Man, props to you if you finish that thing."
and
"Haha! Wow! I didn't know people really read that thing."

Mostly statements ending in "thing." But I should have expected this going onto the T - I've often read over my neighbors' shoulders to find the titles of their choosing. Or just to pass the time. And why should I expect them to withhold their curiosities when I have a whole blog about my own? There's plenty of time to read between the little chats.

After all, the thing's a legend. It's not going anywhere.

Paulie's New Joke

"A man goes to a gallery to sell some of his paintings. He leaves about 12 or so with the operator there and calls in a couple weeks later.

'How's my show goin?' he asks him.

'Well, I got some good news, and I got some bad news,' says the curator. 'The good news is, I had a guy come in who was very interested. He wanted to know if I thought the paintings would appreciate after your death. I told him I thought they would, an' he bought 'em!'

'Wow!' says the artist, 'that's great! So what's the bad news?'

'Bad news is, he's your doctor!' "

The Plea ($5)

This is the poem I purchased:

"The Plea"

You found a piece of clay by the roadside

and thought you had found a jewel;

and kneaded and rolled it

to change it into your dreams;

but it has travelled many a voyage,

and crossed many seas, climbing

ladders of Babel and Babylon;

molded life with a drop of nectar,

the age old juice;

crossed moats to ideals and lived the great philosophy;

take comfort; don't change me;

for our minds will unfold the

bold secrets of motion

and waves will flow as a fountain

and mountains will rise up

and hands will sift the seawater

and I'll be at your side.

- Ricardo 1975

Ricardo

I locked my bike up next to an old man on a bench yesterday. He asked me if I would care to purchase a poem. I was running late for yoga and told him I didn't have time. He said the yoga teacher had also bought a poem and that it was okay, he'd be there when I got out.

I had forgotten him by the time I left class, but he spotted me immediately from his new perch on a bench across the street. As I approached my bike, he stood up and looked left, searching the oncoming traffic for a gap to cross. I watched him cross the street. He was a short man, and his shoulders slumped forward dramatically to accentuate this feature. He wore a loose cardigan - fitting for the strangely cool morning. I wore a sweatshirt. He hugged a stack of file folders close to his chest as he met me.

"So how was your class?"
"It was really nice, thanks. Did you sell any poems while I was in there?"
"Not yet... do you want to have a look?"
"Sure," I said. He invited me over to the bench where I first saw him.
As we sat, he began to read off words from the top of each file folder. He'd read one, look up for my reaction, and then give a short tagline to support the title.
" 'Grandmothers...' " he read, "do you have any grandmothers?"
"I've lost both of mine."
"I'm so sorry about that... Well, let's see here: 'A Conversation with ___ ____' - she was a classics professor over at Harvard. These are the old poems, you see." He opened the file folder to point out the font. "These were all done on typewriter! I'm computer illiterate. That stuff is not of my generation."

He continued in that way through the entire stack, until we got to the end of the pile, and he asked me which I'd like to read. I was so content to sit there that I decided to start from the top. I read through each one, overwhelmed by the volume, trying not to read too fast, but a little too shy to fully invest in his words while he watched. People approached him as we sat. He introduced them to me by name, inquiring after their wives and children. He told me that each one was his neighbor; he was everybody's neighbor. Eventually I picked a poem to purchase.

"This one is for a man," he said, looking sly.

"Oh really?" He didn't think I had caught the innuendo. It was better that way.

"Well, for a woman from a man's point of view. You give it to your boyfriend or husband."

"Okay," I replied.

But I didn't have correct change. So he waited while I ran into Starbucks. When I returned to purchase the poem, another old man in big sunglasses and whitewash jeans approached us.

"Paulie!" he said. "How are ya? Great to see ya. This is Anna - she's an opera singer!"

"Nice to meet you," I said. We shook hands.

"Oh boy, this guy knows everyone," said Paulie. "And I only just found out he likes these double entendre jokes! We were out here the otha day just laughin'! Hey, I got another one for ya."

He told us a few stories; they were definitely clever, but they were improved exponentially by his jovial Bostonian delivery. Ricardo's whole face scrunched up as he laughed high and loud. His smile revealed more rotted teeth behind his cheeks. Paulie said he was surprised that his jokes didn't bore me. I told him I was having fun. He stepped on my foot just before he turned to go.

"Oh excuse me, young lady!"

"No problem. I didn't mean to trip you. It was so nice meeting you."

We shook hands and he walked off toward CVS. Ricardo leaned in close to me then.

"Paulie's blind," he said, "he's been going blind for years."

"Oh - I didn't realize," I replied. I felt like a jerk for being in the way.

"That's all right. I'll listen for you on the classical radio then."

"You do know I'm not famous, right?"

"Not yet, anyway. Let me give you something." He reached into his file folders to pull out another poem. He took a pen from his pocket and signed it. "This is my favorite one."

"Thanks, Ricardo. I'll be seeing you around then."

"Alright then, Anna. You have a nice day."

He shook my hand tightly and I got on my bike.