Going to Dallas--The Long-distance Commute

Today’s commute took me all the way to Dallas and back. Because of the early start and late return I didn’t park my car at the usual park and ride spot but drove directly to the North Springs station. From there I boarded a train to the airport and picked up my flight to Texas. The days activities proceeded as planned and I began my journey home about 3pm eastern time.

My return flight was on time. I mention this as a point of emphasis to indicate the anomaly it is. Yet despite arriving and beginning the deplaning process on time I still felt delayed because I was on the very last row of the plane (how does that always happen to me? Did I offend some boarding agent in a past life and now they have earned their revenge by tagging my profile with the directive to always be given the last row of an airplane now matter what?)

Anyway, by the time I and the flight crew stepped off of the plane into the terminal I was feeling tired and late after all but I continued my journey down the gate hallway and down the escalators to the airport tram train that shuttles people from gates to baggage claim and ground transportation and vice versa. When the tram arrives at the Baggage Claim/Ground Transportation stop everybody gets off and scurries over to the base of four long escalators that move tired travelers up to the main lobby of the airport above where people are gathered en masse to greet, welcome, and shuttle their travelers home. It is the experience of these long escalators that I want to write about.

Riding the long escalators up from the trams to the terminals is what I imagine dying and going to heaven will be like. For starters, I think that most of the people that die will go to heaven, so the fact that the escalators are always full of people and I am among them is not a statement on self-righteousness but a eternal viewpoint that I happen to hold. But the faces of these heaven-bound masses aren’t joyful as you might expect. They are tired, bedraggled, rough, and worn. There are the occasional exceptions of course. Small children excited about a long escalator ride and certain individuals that hold a hint of anticipation in their eyes are two deviations one might find. But most faces simply reflect the fatigue of journeying. Yet at the top of this tunnel a new energy emerges as the faces of loved ones and acquaintances search the spilling crowds rising up from the depths into the presence of their would-be greeters. Some greeters are anxious with anticipation; others are awkwardly looking as if they are worried they may not recognize a face or friend. Some hold signs, unemotionally looking for a person they have never met before and may never see again.

But every traveler eventually arrives at the top of the escalator of which there is no return (as multiple signs remind all who pass). Every traveler reaches the top of the escalator and spills out into the airport terminals and is suddenly there moved from one sphere of travel to another, bound to the ground again like a wing-clipped bird. But it is like heaven, some wandering this way others that, free to go or stay and greet others arriving from below. We could stay and cheer them on but we don’t—we have things to do… just like it will be in heaven.

Profile of Public Transportation Personality

Without question the greatest benefit of riding MARTA is the opportunity to associate with and become acquainted with a variety of strangers that one would never have come to know in any other way. We don't work together, go to the same churches, gyms, or grocery stores. We don't live in the same neighborhoods, have kids on the same soccer teams or hang out in the same places. Basically we don't have anything in common except that we ride MARTA together everyday. And as it turns out, that is a lot in common after all. The reason is that somewhere deep in our psyche the penchant for public transportation exposes a similar psychological thread that links us to each other in surprising ways. The similarity is in both our world views on a larger scale, and our thriftiness on a more personal one. These two traits of personality seem to trigger a certain agreeableness, even affinity for public transportation. I'll explore this topic in more detail but think about it with me for awhile and see if you don't come to the same conclusion.

Olfactory Offenses

There are a lot of smelly people out there. I should know because I use public transportation. Every day I get the chance to cozy up to strangers with varying standards of hygeine and share in the smorgasboard of odors spread generously through the air. In the morning most of the smells are subtley expressed and hardly noticable to the untrained nostril. However, by late afternoon on a muggy summer day even the calloused schnoz best beware lest it suffer the stench of the abundunt olfactory offenses all around. The daily MARTA rider slowly becomes numb over time and soon hardly notices the acrid aromas. But the stranger, novice, or sporadic passenger need take caution. I might suggest the following tactics for such individuals:
-Carry a can of Oust, Lysol, or even your favorite perfume/cologne and spray it abountantly around your seating/standing area
-Breathe only through your mouth
-Coat your nostrils and throat with neon-green wassabe paste just prior to boarding a train or bus
-Acquire and don a protective helmet equipped with breathing apparatus such as is used in chemical warfare
-Completely surround yourself in a plastic bubble that only allows in oxygen that has been thoroughly decontaminated prior to intake

Personally I have become used to the variety of smells and have even acquired a taste for the various "flavors" I encounter. There is the "sweatin' to the oldies" aroma, the "sleep in dumpster" special, and "eat rotten vegetables at every meal" angle. I have learned to tolerate them all. Nothing bothers me anymore, in fact the only real surprise is the occasional alluring scent of a perfumed woman wafting by. Now that is almost too much to handle. It makes me wish I had a plastic bubble after all.

What MARTA riders are reading

The train was very crowded this evening on my commute home. With more riders than seats I and many others were left to hang from the nearest ceiling bar or handrail and stand our way down the track. It wasn't so bad. It is really a form of low-impact exercise with the starts and stops requiring a careful shift of body weight and rebalance in order to stay upright. But even better than the free workout is the excuse to observe others various reading choices. Predictable selections included the AJC, Fulton Review Weekly, and the Bible. Classic texts such as "The Age of Innocene" and (a personal favorite) "Catch-22" were also ingested by reading riders. Current bestsellers such as "The Appeal" and "Texas Hold'em" were literally consumed and there were many other books being read that I hadn't heard of before: "Divine Nine", "Making Magic", "Tudor Colonists", and "Where Football is King."
I personally like to read magazines of various sorts and lean towards "Smithsonian", "Reader's Digest", "Ensign", and lately "TownHall". I usually read scripture for a few minutes in the morning on my bus ride from the park and ride to the train station. But I also dive into a book now and then. I recently finished "The Coldest Winter" about the Korean War.
What interests me even more than what people read is what they don't read--or do for that matter. Many people just sit, day after day, not reading, listening to music, or even sleeping. It is nice to relax for a few minutes but I cherish the quiet time to read and take in new ideas. Boredom has its qualities, but I'd rather do something.

My Daily Commute Atlanta--Background

Two weeks ago I decided to can the car commute and enter the keep-it-real world of public transportation. Various motives propelled me: a new job in the city, the rising price of gasoline, environmental effects of car emissions and the mind-numbing gridlock of Atlanta's rush-hour traffic. Indeed all of those things factored into my decision, but for me there was a different reason behind the change--something more intrinsic and internal. For me the reason for venturing off the well-beaten path of car comfort into the vast variable of buses and trains was driven by a deeper desire for human connectedness. I wanted to live more fully and deliberately. I wanted to live and breathe the world around me--the real world--not some packaged, temperature controlled, edgeless isolation that is the car commute. I wanted to ride a bus, train, and walk down the street towards a destination and back home again. It was that simple.

So thirteen days ago I parked my car at the nearest park-and-ride, approached the bus driver and asked him how I could pay for a bus/train fare into the midtown area of Atlanta. I couldn't get a fare-card there, he said, but he let me ride the bus without fare to the North Springs train station where I bought a fare card for 20 rides ($30 + one-time $5 card purchasing fee). From there I boarded the North Springs MARTA train heading southbound to the airport. I got off the train at Arts Center station and headed out the gate onto West Peachtree where I commenced walking a mile up and around Peachtree St. to my office building just south of 25th street. I had done it. And at the end of the day I did the same thing in reverse and went home. It was so simple, yet so profound. And it changed my life.

The purpose of this blog is to tell my story and in doing so, help me learn something about myself along the way. My commitment to any readers is that I will write something every day that is interesting, insightful, funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. My audience is anyone that is living a contradiction of any type. Including but not limited to people like me that live part of their daily life in one place and part in another--and spend a chunk of their day getting back and forth. I don't know how many of you there are out there but one thing I know for sure is this: You are not alone.