Yesterday early morning, I walked to the station and all my neighbors roses were suddenly in bloom. They sit about waist high next to the sidewalk… all in pinks and yellows. What a pleasant surprise. “Good morning to you,”… I thought with a smile. The world needs more color about now.
So the train comes and I climb aboard in my usual space and in comes the conductor and behind him is this huge guy I’ve seen a few times before who looks to be in his 40’s. He’s overly loud and doesn’t stop talking in his excitement to be ON the train… “Hi TIM!!!” he says in a huffy shout, “are you on the 7:15 all day? So good to see you… next stop is Hamilton-Wenem.” and he yells it out as if we didn’t know… Tim, the conductor smiles and closes the door between cars and you can still hear the big guy going on and on in childish delight. I give Tim a look as he goes by and he smiles as if to say… “Yup, this is my life.”
And so it goes…at the next stop the door opens and he says, “Do you see Suzzy, TIm? She usually gets on at this stop, Tim.” he looks down the car searching…”Or she could have gotten on down there… ” he starts walking…and you can hear him down the car answering his own questions…”I think I need to check down there… the next car… Suzzy will be in the next car…” and few minutes later he comes back with a girl who has Down syndrome… who must be the missing Suzzy…. with a running monologue to her about how there are more seats in the first car and he shuffles her along, door closing behind them.
I keep suppressing giggles and Tim’s caught my eye as I do so and smiles back. It’s quite a show to watch the big guy follow along and try to do what Tim does as if he’s the conductor. The only difference is he stands in the doors in people’s way yelling, “Plenty of room folks…” He’s harmless and entertaining, though I wish he had a softer voice. He takes his job very seriously too. The thing is, I’ve seen this show before on the Concord train and even this one played out by various characters. Trains are exciting… and who doesn’t want to be a conductor for a day and ride the rails?
There is something about watching someone have that much joy in whatever they’re doing. You can’t help but smile. It’s like the gardener who spends the day planting and seeing the garden come to life… the painter, brush between the teeth and back to hands… taking the vision in their heads and allowing it to flow out as paint filling the canvas. Or being in love with Baseball and enjoying just being out on that field with the murmuring voices of the crowd watching. It’s the doing of something you love that brings joy to you and perhaps to others. What brings you joy? What kind of job would you do if you could?
I think my dream job would be talk show host. I want to be like Ellen or Oprah and talk to fascinating people all over the world and find out what makes them tick. At one point, I had started the Inspiration Project were I had borrowed an 8mm camera and went out talking to people in the streets of Boston, at May Day festivals and even at Mythic Journeys conference on what Inspires people. I even got to present some of the films at Mythic Journeys in the Imagination station I was running there as a volunteer. It was amazing while it lasted, but I was fading from the Lyme disease at that point, then my computer died with all my edited films… I had burned about 5 CD’s which no longer play on a computer (no idea why) and there is now no record of them anywhere. I also gave the camera back and now have a bunch of 8mm film laying about with no way to get it onto a computer to start all over again. Now they are just in a box… one among many dreams that never finished.
It seems to me that I have all these wonderful great ideas for creative endeavors that I never start or can’t finish. Some would say that’s classic ADD for you. Me, I think I just live in a world of Fantasy and Fog and it’s hard to pull things out of my head and into the world of reality. Sometimes I’ll talk to friends or people I’ve just met and babble on about my ideas and they say… “OK, let’s do it…” and I look at them stunned like “you can do these things?” and I feel lost like, where would I ever start? Even though I can SEE the finished play or film or screenplay in my minds eye… it’s like I can’t find my way and all becomes swallowed up by fog… is this fear again? Fear of succeeding or fear of having that joy? But wouldn’t joy over ride fears? And then I end up backing away sometimes and diving back into my hermit mode. Occasionally I’ll find someone who coaches me or pushes me to get things done or helps me with one leg… like my amazing friend, Robyn Mellish who helped me create this blog site to make it easier for me.
I so desperately want to climb aboard the train of creativity and scream…”ALL ABOARD!” at the top of my lungs and keep right on going till I finish it. It being whatever great idea happens along next. For today, it’s just this post. This being in the moment with you as my witness. Just another day talking about train rides.
ALL ABOARD!