February morning musings.

Public transit in Baltimore is haphazard.  Buses, metro, circulator, MARC train and the light rail – and all are disjointed, running through different parts of the city without a central connection point.  Resultantly, every morning when I leave for work I’m overcome by a compulsion to drive in (and cough up ten bucks) to avoid the conveyance-induced confusion.

When this happens, mostly, I’m forgetting that the light rail is awesome.

Reason- first- It’s a called a light rail, which immediately leads you to picture this:

Reason – deux -  The light rail brings together a true hodgepodge of individuals and always lends itself to interesting situations.  There’s difference between interesting bus interactions (mostly the same woman, alternating between sleep and prayer-yelling, which entails asking Jesus to remind her children that she can rain down punishment if they don’t stop in their hell-bound efforts to kick every detached, placid commuter in the shin) and interesting light rail interactions.

The best way to capture interactions is through conversations I overhear.

Exhibit a.
I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged women about the Baltimore City Official (police officer, I assume) who checks the light rail tickets.

Light rail ticket- checks occur on a random basis.  However, when checks occur in the morning I’ve noticed that it’s generally the same, middle-aged woman reviewing tickets.  Of this officer, the woman I sat behind said:

“That woman is just so nice.  She’s always kind.  Once I didn’t have my ticket, and she just took a moment to help me hop off at the stop and get another.  Most officers push folks around and hassle you.  She don’t.  She’s just so nice, everyone respects her.”

“She is. She’s the sweetest.”

And on and on they went.  My words will be lacking here – but this conversation really encapsulated
something I’d already been taking in about this officer.

The light rail contingent is a conglomerate of humanity and many try to skirt the system by taking a risk, failing to purchase a ticket on the off-chance no one checks.  And then once someone does come by to check, the story starts flowing.

Many of the individuals of the light rail are rugged. Or withdrawn. Or mumblers.  Or entitled.
Still, this woman is mild-mannered and authoritative; gentle and firm; considerate and unyielding.  Most of all – she genuinely respects every person she interacts with, and really sees them.

I want to be that kind of person.

Exhibit be:
This morning.  The woman I sat behind (in my head, I’ve named her Bess) noticed a friend at one of the stops and starting gently tapping the window, as she told another rider she was chatting with – “I know her! I know her!  Heyyyy Teresa, heyyyy!”

(This could sound annoying – but it was actually really sweet and endearing.  Picture, Buddy the Elf when he talks about Santa.)

And then, when I was getting off, in conversation with her friend, her overheard words gently reminded me

“Everything belongs to God.  Everything does.  … The whole earth is His with everything in it.”

Indeed.