In an effort to cut my carbon emissions, I’m trying to commute to the church by train as much as possible. Last night, the meeting of the Board went later than I had expected. I asked if I could leave a little early, and started walking to the train station at about 9:35 p.m., thinking that I had plenty of time to get there. But when I was still a couple of blocks away from the station — too far to try to run — I heard the train pull into the station, and then pull out of the station. I had misjudged the amount of time I needed to walk from the church to the train. So I had to wait another hour for the next train to arrive. At least I had a good murder mystery to read, so the time went quickly.
In another few months, I will know exactly how long it takes to walk to the train station. But right now, I’m unsure of that, and unsure of lots of other things; I often feel stupid because I just don’t know the simplest things. That’s the hardest thing about moving to a new place: so much of what we do is governed by habits, by small bits of knowledge that we aren’t even aware we have.
If you are using transit. Always pack your flexibility with your book. Occasionally life intervenes. It’s ever so much more pleasant to wait for a train while reading a book. I speak from experience here.
Back when I was a commuter, I read at least a dozen Trollope novels while commuting. Also all of Jane Austen and a couple Dickens. But you shouldn’t get so tied up with your nose buried in a book or paper or your Blackberry that you forget to notice what’s happening around you! It can even be meditation time.
Diggit @ 2 writes: “But you shouldn’t get so tied up with your nose buried in a book or paper or your Blackberry that you forget to notice what’s happening around you!”
Years ago, I once was so occupied by a book that I missed my train. Not a wise thing to do.
When I commuted in Boston, I came to have this (somewhat) demented conviction that if I could speak train (or subway) I would never miss a connection. I never did in Concord, and was certain that was because I spoke Commuter Train fluently. “T”? Not so much. Never got fluent with that one.
Maybe it’s part of that distributed cognition thing. The trains and subways — *they* know when they’re coming and going. You just have to ask them.
Amen, brother, amen.
We’re in the same phase. Everything is new and the simplest things are hard.