Essay: Just along for the ride

Hello, dear reader! I bring you great tidings of joy and another essay. (Okay, I really only bring you the latter.) But aren’t you excited? Maybe not. A quick word: The essays for the next two days will be about my last weekend, when I was in New York visiting old friends. Originally, it was just supposed to be one essay, but then I split it an expanded each section. At the request of a loyal reader, I’ve tried to avoid references to college — which wasn’t really the case Monday. (See? You write in; I answer.) Yay for technology (and an overly receptive-to-criticism writer)!

I don’t know if either essay is any good (as usual), and you might be bored by today’s — about a train ride Sunday morning — but maybe you’ll enjoy it. But, hey, what do you know? There’s only one way to find out! After the jump.

I was riding on a New Jersey Transit train back to Trenton. It was crowded. I was kind of surprised that the train was so crowded at 10:15 on a Sunday morning, but I don’t travel to and from New York all that often, so I guess I don’t really know.

I spent most of the train ride from Penn Station to Newark pawing through a magazine I’d purchased, skimming the articles, trying to figure out which ones I should read. (I do this when I get a magazine even though I’m enough of a completist to usually end up reading the entire thing.) I read an article about Thomas Jefferson’s Bible — did you know he made a Bible that had Jesus’ birth, death and all the miracles removed? — and moved on to one about China’s industry when a German man sat down next to me.

He slid into the seat and pulled out his cell phone, chatting in German. The only English words he said were “Princeton Junction” — or at least those were the only English words that I could make out. I figured he was meeting somebody at Princeton Junction. (Being a journalist allows you to make these incredible deductions out of conversations. Amazing.)

I usually loathe sitting next to someone on a train: There’s never enough room. I lose my armspace and end up having to crush myself against the window or, if I’m on the other side, I risk falling into the aisle. (This has happened once.)

I met a girl once who loved trains — she loved talking with random strangers, staring out the window at random sights, sitting back with her head up and thinking about everything and nothing. I don’t really like any of that. Staring out the window makes me sick. Thinking too much makes me sad. And I’m too shy to have a conversation with a random person, even if we’re stuck next to each other for the next hour or so. The only thing I like about trains is that I can get reading done without any of the normal distractions (computer, cell phone, television, IM).

But I’m not one of those guys who puts his bag on the seat next to him. (My shyness goes far enough that I don’t want to draw any unwanted attention to myself.) It’s a dick thing to do. I expected my Sunday morning train ride to be empty, but it ended up getting more crowded after departing New York. And pretty soon there weren’t many seats left and my German friend took mine. When he sat down, I looked up, smiled and nodded that this seat wasn’t taken and returned to my article.

As I read my (very long) article about China, the guy next to me kept pulling out his phone and chatting with someone every few minutes. The conversations were never long and I, obviously, had no idea what he was saying except “Princeton Junction.” When he wasn’t chatting on his cell, he was looking over — out the window and at my magazine. I read pretty fast, and I was in a better position than him to read it, so I’m sure he only caught bits and pieces. I wasn’t angry — reading over my shoulder usually freaks me out, but I had enough textbook-deficient classes in grade school to know how to share with somebody next to me.

I thought about offering him my other magazine I had when he spoke up: “This article is about China?” I looked up and sort of explained the article, in the shortest way possible. Not because I wanted to be rude, but because I wanted to get back to it. (When I get into something, I pretty much read non-stop until I’m finished.) I was surprised when he had a reply. It was something about how hard it must have been to do all the reporting for the article.

I told him about my own experiences, and how for me it’s always been harder to come up with good ideas, to talk to someone in the first place — but once I get there, it’s actually quite enjoyable and easy. I realized at this point I was enjoying the conversation: once he had taken the leap of asking me about the article, my train ride became better than it could have been with just me perusing this long article about how China is going to run out of water. (They really are, it seems.) I ended up putting the article away.

We chatted and passed Princeton Junction. I didn’t say anything — I figured he knew what he was doing, and I didn’t want him to know I was eavesdropping on his conversation, however unintelligible it was to me. When he got off at the next stop, we said our goodbyes. I mindlessly looked out the window and saw him as he passed my window. His eyes lit up and he spotted who he was going to meet at the end of his train ride. He smiled as I pulled out my magazine and started reading again.

Since then, I’ve got to thinking: As much as I loathe train rides, especially crowded train rides, there is always something good at the end. When I went to New York Friday it was my friends I hadn’t seen in forever. When I came back it was my own place, a warm bed and the Eagles on television later that day. And I think I don’t dislike trains so much anymore.