A Day on the Trains

I spent the day traveling.

Not because I intended to, but because that is what the day had in store for me.

As I write this, I am sitting at the Fire Island ferry terminal, having left my house shortly before seven this morning. It is nearly six in the evening. In that span of time I have crossed Connecticut, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and perhaps a few emotional borders as well.

When I left the house this morning, the day looked orderly on paper.

Catch the 7:07 train.

Pick up my long-awaited Spanish passport.

Visit my son in Brooklyn and see his new apartment.

Uber to Jamaica Station.

Train to Bay Shore.

Ferry to Fire Island.

Simple.

The day, however, had other plans.

Before I even left the house, I noticed one of the sprinklers was stuck, endlessly watering a single patch of grass as if that tiny corner of the earth needed saving. I had time to fix it, but only if I hurried.

As I worked, I remember thinking, Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to miss the train because of a sprinkler?

Life, as it often does, accepted the challenge.

By the time I reached the station, breathless and panting, the train was already pulling away. I stared at it in disbelief.

That can’t be the 7:07.

It was.

A handful of us stood there together, united briefly by the peculiar disappointment of people who had almost made it.

No matter. There would be another train.

And another after that.

That became the theme of the day.

Another train.

Another connection.

Another delay.

Another change of plans.

Somewhere along the way I checked the address for the Spanish Consulate only to discover it was closed for Juneteenth.

I laughed.

Not because it was funny, exactly.

More because there comes a point when life rearranges your plans so thoroughly that resistance starts to feel silly.

Well then.

No passport today.

At least I would still see my son.

That part worked.

I made it to Brooklyn victorious, feeling as though I had crossed a continent rather than a city.

Then came the next chapter.

An Uber ride that was supposed to take thirty or forty minutes suddenly stretched into more than two hours because of traffic.

My carefully orchestrated train to Bay Shore began slipping away.

Then the next one.

Then perhaps the ferry as well.

Meanwhile my phone battery was steadily marching toward extinction, carrying with it every ticket, every address, every piece of information I needed to continue the journey.

There is a special kind of helplessness that comes from watching a battery percentage fall when your entire day lives inside that little glowing rectangle.

The driver was a kind Russian man who spoke almost no English.

I spoke no Russian.

Yet somehow we communicated.

Perhaps because kindness has its own language.

He saw the panic on my face and handed me a charger.

“Sorry, sorry,” he kept saying.

As though traffic was somehow his fault.

As though he had personally arranged every red light between Brooklyn and Queens.

I found myself tearing up.

Not because anything terrible had happened.

No one was hurt.

Nothing was lost.

The world was still turning.

Yet there I was, close to tears over trains and ferries and schedules.

Over time itself.

Or rather, over my inability to command it.

The driver handed me his iPad so I could enter another destination.

The entire screen was in Russian.

I stared at it as though it were an ancient manuscript.

For a moment the absurdity of it all almost made me laugh.

Here I was.

A woman trying to reach a ferry.

Typing English into a Russian iPad while sitting in traffic in New York City.

The universe must have been amused.

Eventually we arrived.

I leapt from the car and ran toward the station.

Seconds later I heard someone calling my name.

The driver.

I had left my bag behind.

Of course I had.

He handed it to me with a smile.

I thanked him profusely.

Then I ran again.

And somehow I made the train.

The rest of the day unfolded in a similar fashion.

Missed connections.

Unexpected waits.

A frantic video call with my son so he could guide me to a platform that was apparently right behind me.

A dying phone.

A lonely electrical outlet at Jamaica Station.

Me sitting on my suitcase on the floor beside it as though I had discovered buried treasure.

Eventually I realized something.

Nothing was actually wrong.

The only thing that kept going wrong was my idea of how the day should be going.

That distinction is small.

And it is enormous.

The trains were doing what trains do.

Traffic was doing what traffic does.

Phones were doing what phones do.

The day itself had no opinion about my schedule.

Only I did.

As I sat there charging my phone, I found myself thinking about my mother.

Lately I have noticed her becoming more frustrated when things don’t go according to plan.

More upset by interruptions.

More discouraged by inconveniences.

I have caught myself wondering when that began.

When did life become so difficult for her?

When did small disruptions begin to feel so large?

Then another question quietly arrived.

Have I always been this way too?

Perhaps age doesn’t create these tendencies.

Perhaps it simply reveals them.

Perhaps all our lives we have been trying to negotiate with reality.

Trying to convince the river to flow faster.

Trying to persuade the train to arrive sooner.

Trying to make life honor the timetable we carry in our minds.

And when it doesn’t, we suffer.

Not because life has betrayed us.

But because we have mistaken our expectations for reality itself.

There is an old teaching that says suffering begins when we cling to what is passing.

Not merely possessions or people.

But moments.

Schedules.

Outcomes.

Ideas.

The mind reaches forward constantly, trying to arrange the next hour before the current one has even arrived.

Meanwhile life keeps unfolding in the only place it ever has.

Here.

Now.

This train.

This station.

This ferry.

This Russian driver.

This son waiting in Brooklyn.

This outlet beside a wall in Jamaica Station.

This very breath.

Perhaps the day was never about getting somewhere.

Perhaps it was about learning, once again, that I was already there.

I hear so many people lately speaking about terrible days.

Days ruined by inconvenience.

By delays.

By misunderstandings.

Days that spiral into arguments and accusations.

Someone doesn’t call.

Someone is late.

Someone forgets.

And suddenly a missed train becomes evidence that nobody cares.

A delay becomes proof of rejection.

A moment becomes a story.

And the story becomes suffering.

Yet sometimes a day is simply a day.

Sometimes traffic is traffic.

Sometimes trains are trains.

Sometimes the universe has no lesson planned beyond asking us to sit still for a while.

And perhaps that is lesson enough.

Today I met a kind Russian driver.

A helpful conductor.

A few strangers.

My son.

And myself.

I did not get my passport.

I missed trains.

I missed connections.

I sat on the floor of Jamaica Station charging my dying phone.

And somehow, despite all of that, life remained remarkably beautiful.

The ferry will leave when it leaves.

The sun will set when it sets.

Tomorrow will arrive whether I worry about it or not.

And today?

Today I simply had a day on the trains.

Nothing more.

And perhaps nothing less.

Hari Om Tat Sat