Accidental Commuter

I actually wasn't looking for a job, but it found me anyway.  I am not complaining.  I am very grateful for the opportunity.  And I had just finished my third book, The Mystery of Loch Duny, so I sent the manuscript off to my editors and visited the company to see what they needed.  What they needed matched my experience and the people are sincere and dedicated, so I agreed to do some consulting for them for the next couple of months.  Teachscape is an educational software company that is truly dedicated to helping teachers with their occupational development.  And that's a new domain for me and so there's lots of interesting work.  But as in a lot of life's new challenges, the really excellent adventure is in the getting there.  Literally, in this case.  The job is in San Francisco, I live 45 miles south.  Forty-five miles of prime commute, or put another way, a two-hour drive each way.  I drove it exactly once.  The next day, I became a customer of public transportation.  I take Caltrain to San Francisco and walk the 1.25 miles from the train station to the office. It is still a two hour commute door to door but much less stressful than sitting in traffic and I get some exercise thrown in there as a bonus.  And so, I have become, quite literally, an Accidental Commuter.  

For a person that has never taken public transportation, taking the train has been quite an experience.

Learning the ins and outs of mass transit Clipper Cards and tagging on and off were simple but the fun is settling in on the train and people watching. 

I tried reading or working on the train and plenty of people do it.  But I found I am much more interested in looking at people and making up stories about them in my head.

(I suppose it's the writer in me.)



Sunnyvale Caltrain Station

Harriet gets on the train in Palo Alto.  She doesn't like having to get up early in the morning and is rushing every morning as she gets on the train.  She is left-handed, which I noticed when she was putting on her earrings one morning.  She's divorced and has two grown children, a son who lives in Maui and surfs and a daughter who is a lawyer living in Chicago.  Harriet never smiles.  She rarely even looks up.  The world is too much with her and I wonder if the sound of her laughter would startle even herself.  Some of the cars on the train have seats that face each other and one morning Harriet is facing me and as I stare at her, she finally looks up.  I smile.  I smile a lot at everyone I see at the train.  Not for their sake, but for my own.  I always feel better when I smile.  Go figure.  My smile is confusing to Harriet. She can't decide if I'm looking at her or beyond her.  Finally, the corners of her mouth move just the smallest bit.  But she catches herself and looks away.  The next day, as Harriet boards the train I smile again, but she looks away and sits facing away from me.  I don't really know what Harriet's life is.  Whether or not she has kids, is divorced.  I do know she is left-handed and I do know she is not a happy person.   My hope for today is that the cosmos send Harriet something to smile about if even just for a moment.  Or even better, God, would asking for a good belly laugh for her be out of line?