"This is my first time to ride the Metro," the 30ish woman said as she sat down by me on the Yellow Franconia line at 5:55 p.m. on June 20th. "I'm from Texas, and we ride in cars there. I never see other people, but wow, here I see everyone!" She was a bit nervous, I could tell, but with experienced D.C. friends, doing okay. But her comment, voluntarily given, was really interesting. She could have talked about being underground, about the heat, about the crowds, about the long, long escalators. But she noticed the people, their diversity, their busyness, their joy, their exhaustion, their humanity. And it really seemed a revelation to her, this Killeen, Texas woman who had gone from place to place in her own cocoon and had never noticed others unlike her own small world.
Perhaps she asked if she could sit by me because I had taken the "reserved for the disabled and elderly" seats. I know I'm not elderly, but this is, after all, my 57th birthday, and I hardly qualify as young. In truth, if the seats are open, and others are not, people take these seats, even blue-suited, white-haired aging men. So I did, and she joined, and we had a moment. Killeen ... my guess is a military wife, transferred with her husband to a base or fort or air field near here, but who knows? Killeen folk probably hate that stereotype, and I apologize.
It was a good birthday day in fact, quite productive. From Crystal City Metro at 7:00 a.m. to Woodland Park Metro, about 30 minutes away, to look at a potential hotel site for an LCU reception, then down the Red line to Foggy Bottom to negotiate another possible hotel site, then up the Red line 40 minutes to Rockville for an internship site review, then down the red line 15 minutes to Bethesda and another site review, then down another 15 minutes to Dupont Circle for lunch with a Washington Center Internship executive for planning and review, then a 30 minute walk to another site review, followed by another walk back to the Metro, and a 20 minute ride to the Navy Yard Metro, via Metro Center and a switch to the Green line, for another hotel negotiation meeting, and then, after a time for coffee and some note-taking (while watching neighborhood moms and children playing in the park fountain), the 20 minute ride up the Green line to transfer to the Yellow line and on to my home for the week. All without a car, all on foot and by Metro, a truly marvelous, modern miracle, where suits and soldiers, laborers and students, parents and children, tourists and seasoned civil servants -- from every race and every ethnicity, straight and gay, poor and much richer, young and old, deaf and hearing, healthy and compromised -- meet in a common quest, to get somewhere. There is not much talking, there is not much eye contact, there is, to the inexperienced rider, a kind of coldness or impersonality. But they are all trying to get somewhere.
And on the way, they learn to get along.
Peace!
Perhaps she asked if she could sit by me because I had taken the "reserved for the disabled and elderly" seats. I know I'm not elderly, but this is, after all, my 57th birthday, and I hardly qualify as young. In truth, if the seats are open, and others are not, people take these seats, even blue-suited, white-haired aging men. So I did, and she joined, and we had a moment. Killeen ... my guess is a military wife, transferred with her husband to a base or fort or air field near here, but who knows? Killeen folk probably hate that stereotype, and I apologize.
It was a good birthday day in fact, quite productive. From Crystal City Metro at 7:00 a.m. to Woodland Park Metro, about 30 minutes away, to look at a potential hotel site for an LCU reception, then down the Red line to Foggy Bottom to negotiate another possible hotel site, then up the Red line 40 minutes to Rockville for an internship site review, then down the red line 15 minutes to Bethesda and another site review, then down another 15 minutes to Dupont Circle for lunch with a Washington Center Internship executive for planning and review, then a 30 minute walk to another site review, followed by another walk back to the Metro, and a 20 minute ride to the Navy Yard Metro, via Metro Center and a switch to the Green line, for another hotel negotiation meeting, and then, after a time for coffee and some note-taking (while watching neighborhood moms and children playing in the park fountain), the 20 minute ride up the Green line to transfer to the Yellow line and on to my home for the week. All without a car, all on foot and by Metro, a truly marvelous, modern miracle, where suits and soldiers, laborers and students, parents and children, tourists and seasoned civil servants -- from every race and every ethnicity, straight and gay, poor and much richer, young and old, deaf and hearing, healthy and compromised -- meet in a common quest, to get somewhere. There is not much talking, there is not much eye contact, there is, to the inexperienced rider, a kind of coldness or impersonality. But they are all trying to get somewhere.
And on the way, they learn to get along.
Peace!
