I’m not late; I’m running because I can, because I’m alive, because I love running.

I write in my Book of Magic. Why is it magic? I write down whatever comes to my mind that I think will bring me to a Happy Place.

I settle into my seat. I open a book, read a little. A couple of stations later I look up and see this Chinese woman. With her right hand, she’s adjusting the hood of the baby who is strapped in front of her. She leans over, kisses her baby on his forehead and covers his head. Her back is arched to balance his weight.

A small boy is holding her left hand. He’s wearing a backpack and looking around. He lets go of her hand as he looks around, curious and distracted.

The mother looks unhurried, relaxed. The little boy is still looking around and without looking at his mother, his right hand reaches up and back. He expects her hand to be there.

Her right hand is cupping the head of her baby as her left hand reaches out to hold her son’s expectant right hand.

All is right in the world.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I get off the train and walk towards work.

I watch Mr. Brown head off in the opposite direction – his hair blowing in a somewhat triangular formation in his self-created breeze. He walks quickly with a slightly splay footed gait.

I see him at least once a week and he’s always wearing jeans, a polo shirt and a tan windbreaker.

Other people are rushing by, streaming out of the trains.

Today is a lovely day. The sun is burning off the clouds and the scent of jasmine rises up from the warming earth.

I hear birds singing and I watch the crows dart overhead.

As the sun shines upon my face I think about people who have had a near-death experience – how they see a tunnel of light and they want to head towards it. But then they decide to turn back because maybe their work here on earth is not done or someone needs them.

A common reaction to their near-death experience is greater empathy, a lessened fear of death and a greater appreciation of life. One woman I read about said that so much of what stresses other people doesn’t bother her because she knows that when it comes right down to it, most of what we stress about is not all that important.

I’ve watch Mr. Brown scurrying off the past couple of months, head bent, brows furrowed. He never looks around and avoids eye contact.

Rush-rush-rush.

Don’t wait until you have a near-death experience to appreciate the life you have.

Don’t have a near-life experience.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’ve been kinda busy these days and life seems a bit hectic. I can’t blame it on my new job or the job itself – I’m busy all day but I’m not stressed out.

It’s just that I now have 3 hours a day I spend on commuting alone (granted I’m dozing most of the time) and I have 2 courses I am taking at night which means I have homework and then there are taxes to file (almost done) and people to see and places to go.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much energy to see people or go places. But, I have managed to sneak in a dinner with friends here, a drink with friends there and a run around the lake on the weekend.

The great thing about being able to commute via the train is: If I’m not busy forming a question mark as a friend describes how I sleep in a moving vehicle (leaning forward, head down, always managing to catch myself before hitting the dashboard), is that I can actually see the changing landscape. I can look down on grimy industrial areas and gaze at trees lining a hillside. The trees look like green lace when the sun is coming up from behind them.

There are lots of trees surrounding the area where I work and many different kinds. There are large stands of these long-needled pines, Sweet Gum trees and Brazilian Pepper Trees to name just a few that I know. The Sweet Gums are just starting to leaf. Most are bare.

I might be rushing around dashing from the train station to work but Nature whacked me upside the head with what seemed to be a Blossom Bomb. It seemed like one day the trees were merely green, the next day an explosion of beauty.

Spring done sprung!!

Speaking of spring, Younger Dude’s birthday is this Sunday. He’ll be 66 years old. He took me out for my birthday and I said I would return the favor. While dinner is all well and good, Younger Dude wants something else for his birthday: he wants to see me in a DRESS. He said to me, “I want to see me some LEGS!”

There is definitely some SPRING left in Younger Dude!

Hmm..the last time I wore a dress was at a wedding. Guess I’m about due.

The things I do for love.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I was on the morning train and he sat near the connecting doors about a dozen rows away facing across and towards me.

Sometimes I doze and sometimes I read on the train. It depends. It depends on how much sleep I got the night before.

I also like to look at the changing landscape outside the window.

The days are getting longer and I miss the slanting shadows cast by winter sunrises and the way the light makes everything stark and brittle and sharply defined.

This unremarkable man was tucked in his seat near the connecting doors. He sat alone. He leaned against the window and his left arm rested along the top of the seat behind him.

It was his arm that caught my eye. As I said, he was unremarkable: a middle-aged man in jeans, polo shirt, and a tan windbreaker. He wore glasses. He was thin. Watchful. He looked like an old crow.

The man had one remarkable thing about him: bad hair. It wasn’t so much that it was bad hair but it was cut in a very unflattering style. It was flyaway sandy brown hair parted to the right and the man would run his fingers through it over and over.

It was chin-length hair cut in a bob. But it was a wispy bob. He kept smoothing his hair with his hand, combing it with his fingers, fussing with it. He played with it as if it were thick and lustrous.

He got off the train a few stations later. He was a thin middle-aged man in jeans, polo shirt and windbreaker wearing a Buster Brown haircut.

If it weren’t for the hair, he’d have faded into the background.

Maybe that’s why he wore it that way.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .