Never a day behind her time

I have a seat on a standing room only commuter train to Providence, on my way to spend Memorial Day Weekend helping greygirlbeast and humglum pack in preparation for their move back to Birmingham, Alabama in June. The MBTA kept right on with its weeklong trend of falling over, so I walked the last leg from Downtown Crossing after it became clear that waiting to change for the twenty-minutes-delayed Red Line would cause me to miss my train while walking up Summer Street would only cause me to overheat. I got my ticket. I ate a sandwich from Au Bon Pain very quickly. And now I am watching the world rattle past the scratched and shimmering windows of the car, looking like summer already: full-leafed, sun-drenched, haze-skied green. We have passed warehouses, meadows, power lines, ponds, corners of towns seen from the steep overpass angles that make cars in a parking lot look like the miniature accompaniments of a model train. Rusted rails and weathered crossties pulled up from the earth and piled beside the line. I want very much to be at a beach. Maybe next week as part of aggressively recovering from this past week. In the moment, however, I am on a train and I like them even when they are overcrowded. I like traveling. I was raised in the tradition of the Glixman Turtles, to take my home with me wherever I went. I prefer to employ this talent at desire rather than need, as has been the case for so much of the last four years. Like when I finally move somewhere without quite so much construction in the mornings.