I sit on the train and watch the world go by. How many books–how many essays? how many stories?–have you read with that same opening? “I sit on the train and watch the world go by.” Perhaps it’s such a common line because it holds some sort of Universal Truth. That, in the moment, on a train, we are stationary in ourselves, yet the world moves around us at a speed we ourselves could never touch. We observe everything through glass. We feel the movement of the train rushing us onwards as we stay so very still, looking out the window.
On the train to visit my parents and my granny for her 94th birthday, I find myself reflecting. I often find myself reflective when I travel. I chose to take the train instead of driving—partially because of practicality, partially because I still have not quite conquered my driving anxiety.
I was looking forward to a couple of hours of reading, of watching the world go by. Work has been busy, days have been overwhelmingly full, and the growing stacks of books in my living room have been left untouched. On the longest train of the journey—a lovely solid hour of reading time—I settle into a window seat, placing my coat in the overhead rack and my book on the large table, a promise to myself to read on this journey. An older gentleman sits down at the opposing seat in the aisle opposite; a smart coat, tartan trousers, big glasses, two books he sets down on the table made for four. We smile at one another, an acknowledgement of reader-to-reader, and I settle in, the train due to leave in just a few minutes.
The carriage is full. Full of sound. A group cracking open cans of beer, talking excitedly of their plans for the day. A family laughing loudly, teasing one another about silly things. Someone talking on the phone with glee, “I’ll be there soon!”
The man and I read our books, the train raring to go, until I hear a small voice. “Excuse me, would it be okay for me and my mum to sit here.” Not directed to me, but directed to the older man. He’s thrilled to say yes. He puts down his book and engages with such fullness, gives his energy so willingly to this smiling little girl. I find myself smiling over, at mum joining the table, a little flustered by the rush to board the etrain just a minute before it’s due to disembark.
Although my headphones play music, I can still hear their conversation. I wore my headphones on purpose for the journey. Often, I’m happy to converse with strangers on public transport. I’m happy to engage in small talk that rolls rapidly into warm stories–sad stories, kind stories, silly stories. I learn so much from the strangers who sit in my life for just an hour, who pick up the stories they don’t always get to tell so often, roll them around in their hands before we part.
But this day, this journey, I wanted to read my book. I needed the downtime before a sociable afternoon. So, I wore my headphones as a polite signal, a gentle “do not disturb.” Yet, how wonderful it was to hear the conversation unfold between these strangers, between this little girl, her mum, and this older man, to watch them thread together shared experiences, Universal Truths that even someone decades older shares. To bemoan teachers, to share little facts; I was born here, I went to school there, did you know Edinburgh castle sits on a volcano? You’re right, it does!
Life is full of journeys, of course. We journey to work, we journey from the bedroom to the bathroom, from childhood to adulthood, from friends to friends, from jobs to jobs, from beliefs and lessons and understandings. I fee the same way on trains that I often feel when I travel alone through an airport. Honestly, I feel grateful to exist. Grateful to be alive. Grateful in that moment to have journeys to make, to have people to see, to have goodbyes to make again and again and again.
On the train to see my family, I think of my granny, now 94. She’ll be so happy to see me, even if she doesn’t quite remember me at first. She’ll know I am a part of her story. Her life a tapestry I cannot quite picture, the journeys she’s made, the stories that have knitted her into the woman she is.
The little girl across from the older man reaches out with curiosity at the world, wants to hear about this older man’s little facts, the stories he shares. I was always so drawn in by the stories my grandparents told, I wanted my granny to tell me about life in the war, about walking past factories and through fields to get to school, about the bees her father kept, about the toilet at the end of the garden without a flush. I wanted grandpa to tell me about being awoken by a knocker upper, not an alarm clock, about his first jobs, about falling in love with my granny across a dancefloor. I wanted the stories and richness of these tales, as if each story would guide my own, as if the histories of others could thread together the future of mine.
I think these stories do. After all, the ripples of our lives ripple others.
I make sense of the world through stories. As Joan Didion said, “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
I write, for now, of small pleasures. They hold me up. The small things that bring me warmth. A robin at my window bird feeder, a smile shared by a neighbour in the close, the cat on the wall in the garden, the sky reflected in the windows opposite.
Next time you’re on a train with no one to converse with, just the hills to watch rushing by, catching glimpses of things—of people walking dogs in fields, of sheep and cows, of birds in flight, blink and you’ve missed it—I invite you to see what makes you feel warm in that moment. What memories surface, what journeys reflect in the windows beside.
TO READ: On my list last month, I’ve finally read it. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. So important. So beautiful.
Normally I make a new playlist. We’re going back in time with this one!
Thank you for ‘tuning in’ for another little Stories from Beth. I’m glad to be getting into the rhythm of it again.
Thank you, as always.
