Golden Friday evening, but alone. Who will walk with me? Who converse? All these other people going places together, or standing together in groups, heads bent into the circle, who are they to me?
On the train, the usual collection of TGIF office warriors. An old scrawny redhead guy sat next to me, his sagging pants showing pubic hair of the same hue. An older white-haired woman in a print dress got on a Back Bay and leaned on the post next to me. When I offered my seat, she pointed with her chin to the young girls across aisle of the car: 'They should be getting up.' Yet she didn't sound curmudgeonly; later I learned (I think) she had been a professor of anthropology, which may have explained the objectivity of her comment.
A conversation ensued (it needn't have) when she asked about the book in my hand: a Primo Levi double bill: Survival in Auschwitz and Reawakening. I launched into what was impressing me about these works: their clinical objectivity, even about the author's profound shock, and was the book really modeled on the Iliad and the Odyssey... We talked about our love of reading and vulnerability to book shops. 'I have to be careful; I want to buy too many,' you said as you leaned over me, and I, straight-backed on the edge of the seat, attended to your words. How satisfying a printed volume was, you remarked, but that you were going to be looking into getting a Kindle since you were going to India soon. You'd written a thesis once on the practice of suttee but you hadn't actually visited before, and were looking forward eagerly.
We chatted all the way up the escalator at Forest Hills, and when our paths divided on the far side of the gates, I held out my hand and gave her my name. She gave me hers along with a surprisingly strong grip, then walked away.
I went to have a beer on the patio at the Dogwood. As I sipped and listened to Paul Simon Slip-sliding, my aloneness felt less lonely. Glad to have met you.
On the train, the usual collection of TGIF office warriors. An old scrawny redhead guy sat next to me, his sagging pants showing pubic hair of the same hue. An older white-haired woman in a print dress got on a Back Bay and leaned on the post next to me. When I offered my seat, she pointed with her chin to the young girls across aisle of the car: 'They should be getting up.' Yet she didn't sound curmudgeonly; later I learned (I think) she had been a professor of anthropology, which may have explained the objectivity of her comment.
A conversation ensued (it needn't have) when she asked about the book in my hand: a Primo Levi double bill: Survival in Auschwitz and Reawakening. I launched into what was impressing me about these works: their clinical objectivity, even about the author's profound shock, and was the book really modeled on the Iliad and the Odyssey... We talked about our love of reading and vulnerability to book shops. 'I have to be careful; I want to buy too many,' you said as you leaned over me, and I, straight-backed on the edge of the seat, attended to your words. How satisfying a printed volume was, you remarked, but that you were going to be looking into getting a Kindle since you were going to India soon. You'd written a thesis once on the practice of suttee but you hadn't actually visited before, and were looking forward eagerly.
We chatted all the way up the escalator at Forest Hills, and when our paths divided on the far side of the gates, I held out my hand and gave her my name. She gave me hers along with a surprisingly strong grip, then walked away.
I went to have a beer on the patio at the Dogwood. As I sipped and listened to Paul Simon Slip-sliding, my aloneness felt less lonely. Glad to have met you.
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