In
the short period of time that I've been taking the train
there have been two fatal accidents, which made the
trains slow down. Both times I was disturbed by how
my thoughts went quickly to my own needs. Would I miss
the shuttle? How long would it take to get home? On
Friday we had been sent home early but I sat on the
train for more than twenty minutes before we began the
trip home. It was a train full
of rowdy drunken Friday night baseball game going
... people. I read until the volume overwhelmed my ability
to concentrate.
Will
I be late for the shuttle? Will I ever get home? It's
the only real reaction. Emotions about someone you've
never even seen are always a bit abstract. Maybe if
I'd been on the train that hit the man my feelings would
have been more ... I dunno. Somthing.
Reading
about who
it was made it less abstract. The need to have a
story rushes in. The image of bags of chips seems cinematic.
But, again. That's an abstraction. I never think about
the people who are dead. I always think about the friends
and families and the train workers who get caught up
in the event.
But
first I think about the shuttle.
As
we get closer to tomorrow the rhetoric piles up. The
need to have a story rushes in. Who tells the story
extracts the meaning. And self interest is what it is.
I'm
not saying I'm a bad person because I wanted to be home
on a Friday night and not on a train full of beer slugging
sports fans and teenagers. If this period of my life
is teaching me anything it's teaching me when to make
meaning and when to just experience the world I'm in.
It's a lesson I need to learn. But the stories they
do rush in.
Oddly
enough, I was reading an old issue of The
Sun in which there was some writing about death
and grief. It's amazing how stuff lines up.
Five
years ago I was in an MFA program. Writing a book. Dean
was visiting. Ten years before that I was working in
a restaurant in the World Financial center. I took a
subway to the Trade Towers and walked across the bridge
between the buildings. I have no conclusions to draw
from those memories. I just remember how it all felt.
Tonight
I'm doing the Sunday night things to get ready for the
week ahead. I've been avoiding the TV and the radio
but while I waiting for a call I watched a bit of a
documentry. Fairly amazing that it exists. My call
came and I stopped watching. But for the time that I
watched it was compelling.
I
believe in stories. I think we need to tell ours and
hear the stories other people have to tell. Some stories
seem too big to contain. All we can do is listen and
watch. Some stories seem too small to contain. And life
demands our attention.