emergences

commuting on the subway is a great opportunity for contemplation. 

you descend into the bowels of the world, move along and harrowing speeds, crammed in a little metal container with 300 strangers who in different circumstances could be your close relations, cherished lovers, mortified victims, egregious attackers, aghast onlookers, and so on, but who for the next 30 minutes are your complete freakin’ strangers and you’ll do anything to maintain that relationship.  you wear an ipod; you stare at the adverts on the walls; you gaze at the non-functioning air conditioning system blowing muggy air on your face; you read a book; you close your eyes.

when i’m not listening to my ipod, staring at the walls, gazing at the A/C, or reading, i like to think about the other states of being that one might achieve in the course of one’s lifetime and compare my present experience to those ones.  like the feeling of immediacy that ground troops must feel under enemy fire in some military campaign – considering what one must think of one’s life, confronted with the immediate probable loss of aforementioned life, and how precious each and every second of breathing, thinking and feeling must be in comparison.  or the feeling of some palliative-care patient, knowing that the cessation of life is imminent or at least oncoming, every second counting down inexorably and surely to an end to what must certainly be an existence of suffering and struggle and often times pain.  those are the thoughts that make me appreciate being in the subway.  those are the thoughts that randomly cause me to burst out with a beaming smile of gratitude and appreciation when everyone around me still seems grim and morose at the daily crush of commuting.

there are rewards and joy to be found in the subway.  like this morning.  i’ve taken to running home from work along the utterly beautiful lake shore on tuesdays and thursdays.  so wednesday and friday, i go to work without my bag (having left it at work the day before) and my hands are free.  fully 99% of all people everywhere in toronto have some form of sack or handbag or briefcase or laptop bag as they commute – a sure-fire sign that they are (a) working in their off-hours; (b) have important business shit to carry back and forth; (c) cannot live without something that is too large to fit in their pants pocket or the palm of their hand.  the feeling of freedom that NOT carrying something brings is … frankly awkward… but also an inestimable joy in and of itself.  it’s like being the only one in a crowd who is not tied to a 100lb ball and chain.  and then there was the moment when i opened my eyes after having them closed for five minutes and catching that pretty woman looking at me while i was thinking.   i don’t know who she was, what she does, who she’s married to or dating, or what she was thinking, but it was a moment.  and i’ll never see her again.  that just reeks of romance, doesn’t it?  and what fun is life without romance?  finally and most assuredly, there’s the moment when i emerge from union station – into the daylight and the sunshine (weather permitting) or even the cloudiness or rain… every time i ascend into the surface-world, confronted with the awesome spectacle of man’s engineering genius (and incredibly phallic expression), the cn tower, i can’t help but feel amazement that i live in such a world.  such a world of achievement and accomplishment.  it’s sincerely humbling and reaffirming.

i think that i’ll buy some rollerblades and start rollerblading to and from work – so that i can spend more time on my much beloved lake shore trail.  but then i’d miss that moment when i emerge from the subway station, and i’m not sure that there’s a better reason to live in toronto.

- g

song equally suitable for riding the subway or hanging out at the beach of the day: hayling, fc kahuna