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