New York Days

Looking back on Metro North

For the past month, every Wednesday I have taken the train to Manhattan to meet my daughter Eliza, whose marriage is two weeks from today. Two days ago, I went in for the last time, for her final wedding dress fitting.

I am melancholy. As much as going into the city ate up an entire day, it never felt like a sacrifice. Over the past month of once a week roundtrip train rides I finished reading four novels. I was alternately- and sometimes simultaneously- fascinated and irritated by my fellow travelers. I saw the Metro North New Haven line’s view of Connecticut scroll by my window at 30-40 MPH, town greens and shoreline inlets, trash-heaps and graffiti, distant cars at a standstill on I-95 (this last being what drove me to take the train in the first place).

For me, a regular day at home I get to control. The outcome is largely known, and curveballs are few. My New York Days, on the other hand, took on a rhythm while maintaining the potential for surprises, like the drunk who locked himself in the bathroom for an hour and the woman who asked if she could try out her stand-up act on me. Also, as restless and task-oriented as I am in my daily life, New York Day mandated inertia and patience. It was literally irresistible.

It occurs to me my favorite part of the wedding may have already happened: the part where I paid attention not just to what’s ahead, but to kind, funny, beautiful Eliza and the moments we were in. I know how weddings are, and I expect a joyful whirlwind, but those New York Days held the edge of the precious moment and the happily ever after still to come, bookended by the hypnotic hum of the rails running between so much love, and so much love.