You Are Waiting For a Train
Life is a random, mixed-up affair. It makes sense. It befuddles. Uplifting. Browbeating. Whatever it serves, life is coordinated chance.
Take trains. Subway cars. Claustrophobic metal tubes shuttling under big cities. A pixied redhead preceeded me onto a car yesterday, both of us grinning and apologizing as we negotiated the entrance together. She took her orange plastic seat. Eventually, I found mine. Light alternated with murk in lurching bursts of forward motion.
MTM and I were headed for a rendezvous of sorts. A favorite table. A person we grew to like over servings of lush salads, cushiony baguettes and soft-boiled eggs. Logan laughed at the stars in my eyes after she made a table for John Turturro. She was a professional, always remembering us, whether we came in once a quarter or once a year.
This time, we stayed away too long.
The redhead on the train accepted the greeting of an engaging Italian, bantering about the place they used to work. Our place. Our Logan. Eavesdropping on a train is a required hazard of the mode of travel. We couldn’t help it when we heard her name. Only, the redhead told her friend Logan was gone. We weren’t going to see her this trip.
We probably won’t see her again.
Life is a series of random opportunities. To say thank you. To be friendly. To tell someone what they mean to us. To leave that extra something behind. We make the disjointed story in a simple act. Like making the right choice whilst waiting for a train.
Life is indeed a spin of the roulette table, we need to take every opportunity to reach out to those we care about. We get busy, we are involved, we run hither and yon….an then, BAM…someone is gone and we didn’t get a chance to say anything to them.
I am thankful every day to exchange thoughts with friends here in blog world as well as those I get to see around the Lowcountry.
I’m thankful for this mode of communicating, too. It is a treat to get to see people every day, to talk to them and to hear what they have to say.
I’m very glad I made this connection. Lovely.
Me too, Lori.
lovely words, and thoughts. Complete agreement.
Thank you, Cheryl.
You did that on purpose, didn’t you. You had me at “train”!
I love the picture too. Your photography is really beautiful.
Now for the admission. When I first read “pixied redhead” in my brain I read “pixilated redhead”. Way too much of a geek.
Anyway, lovely post. I often wonder what happens with all the varied people we briefly meet or glimpse one they go off-stage.
I wish I had a photo with a train in it. Alas, all I had was that necklace, and it didn’t read well.
This is so touching, beautiful, and real. Heart-breakingly real.
We were really sad, Lisa. I hope we bump into her again someday.
Lovely post. And I am very much enjoying the visual education I have been getting with all the photos you’ve been posting lately!
I’ve always liked this one from the MoMA. It looks like opportunity for some reason.
Sitting here with tears streaming down my cheeks – we never know if/when we may get another chance to “connect” as we travel down life’s track. This is such a poignant message….
…and then you threw Johnny Cash into the bargain!
Thanks, friend!
Perhaps we will run across her again someday just like you found me on Facebook.
Oh, I just said a little beggy prayer that this gets Freshly Pressed. Perfect closing line and even better story
Thanks, Tori. I should’ve asked about Freshly Pressed. I always forget to make that query.
I love to people watch and eavesdrop. And then, I imagine entire lives for the people who I only saw for ten seconds.
Isn’t it fun to imagine who people might be? I agree with you, Jessie.
I will not forget the reference to life as “coordinated chance.” Yes! I feel a little clutch at my heart with this beautiful piece, Andra. I have too many people with very serious health crises right now, to not walk around all day long understanding your message. I think many of us blog for connection because we sometimes sense we are losing others, or at least feel that is possible. I’m so touched. Debra
Nancy’s post today gets to the heart of some of my frustrations.
http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/disconnected-connections-distractions/
I fear we rely too much on social media these days to stay connected, and it really isn’t a connection at all. One of the reasons I started this blog was to have deeper conversations with people than Facebook and other formats afforded. Nothing takes the place of a good old-fashioned conversation.
Certainly, true, but maybe the benefit of conversation without responsibility frees up our minds (mine anyway) through a minimal investment. Then the weighty nature of some of my more complex relationships take on a different proportion. I hope I’m always capable of discerning the difference. I will always be a very relational person, but if I quit my job I’d have more time for both
D
I wish I had more time for meaningful relationships, too, Debra.
Great post…. Life is indeed a series of random experiment
Zahir
Thanks Zahir.
Beautiful post, Andra.
Of all the social media, I find blogging the most satisfying . . . a chance to explore in greater depth and character the nuances that make us up.
Sorry about Logan’s leaving before your train arrived this trip.
Nancy, it has been really rewarding for me to make friends all over the world through blogging. It is indeed a deeper form of communication, a way to connect with likeminded people.
Andra, you have got me thinking of all of the good friends I have made over the years who have moved on. I don’t make that many friends easily, but the ones I do make are really good friends. It is strange how we tend to drift apart, but such is the nature of life, I suppose.
I hope you meet Logan again – possibly somewhere where you least expect it; that would make the meeting all the more special for both of you!
Great post, by the way!
It is always hard for me to think about the people I’ve cared about in life who have moved on. I still want to tell my childhood best friend things, though we are no longer in touch. Habits. They haunt us, I suppose.
Seize the day, they say, don’t they: sometimes I have, sometimes I haven’t. There were many times you did connect with Logan, I guess; maybe you’ll meet again when you least expect it.
Maybe, Kate. Maybe.
This is a wonderful post, Andra.
For a decade or so there was a little hole-in-the wall coffee shop in the town I lived in. It was frequented by commuters and pre-school moms, businessmen and retirees, teenagers and college students – and everyone in between. Many of us, including me, were there on an almost daily basis. I made friends there, we mourned the passing of a few regulars, and so forth. Tom used call it my office and would come there looking for me at times.
One day, mid-afternoon on a Sunday, I stopped for a mocha, talked to a friend, and we went our way. Little did we know we were likely the last customers and it closed! For good. No one knew why, where the owners went, what happened. It just closed. It was the saddest, oddest, sight as folks walked about not knowing quite where to go or how to get in touch with people they saw on a regular basis.
A few months ago, a new coffee shop opened in the same location. It is doing a booming business and “auld” acquaintances are seeing each other, six years older, once again. You never know, Andra, you may meet Logan again – or, you may just have other chances. In fact, I’m sure you will.
Again. A wonderful post.
Loved the flow of this, Andra; and that photo is so fab! You shall encounter Logan again, sometime, if it is meant, don’t you think? Your words caused me to pause, though, as I think about leaving the library after 10 years. I shall wonder about the regulars I’ve come to cherish over the years ~
Andra, have you ever read “Make Your Own Luck” by Peter Kash?
http://amzn.to/wnIEHd
It is one of the best books on connecting with people during the everyday occurrences of life. So serendipitous. I think you would really like it.
I haven’t, but I will put it on my list. Thank you.
It’s funny how we mourn the missed opportunities even as we marvel at the connections. There’s a filmic quality to this, I want to watch the scene unfold on a screen now, too.
A cinematic quality was what I was striving for in this piece. Thank you for affirming that I hit my mark, Cameron.