The train is like a mother.

The train is like a mother. She sweeps across the city and at every stop she opens her doors like loving arms to the pretty, the ugly, the hardworking, the smelly, the poor, the rumpled, the scared. With a beep her doors announce their coming and, from rain and wind, they pile into her warm clutches, settling against her bedraggled bosom. When I sit in a seat facing backwards and the train sails down a hillside, I sink into the seat as though I am settling into a loving embrace. The world rushes around me but I find the seat beneath my comfortingly stationary. Sometimes I hate the train. Sometimes she smells so bad, disgusting me as I wipe the proverbial dust from my index finger. Sometimes her people disgust me, all going places with no purpose, probably mostly having paid nothing for her embrace and yet she carries them along faithfully, like a good priest feeding a thief. Sometimes I hate her crudeness, her coarseness. And yet I have hated similar characteristics in my own mother, so I know I still love the train.

I am friends with some of her children, though not all of them know it. One man sits in the front car as I do every morning. His dress is somewhat formal, though his shoes are not very shiny and his shirt always rather rumpled. He has about him a very awkward, blundering air and he carries a faded, threadbare backpack with him to a very business-like place each morning. He listens to an mp3 player with awkward earphones on large, red ears and his enormous facial features are plain and yet kind. I wonder what he listens to. Once, I sat across from him and he let me rest my viola against his seat while I looked for my phone. Another day he sat in front of me. His player fell on the ground and I found it for him. I told him to have a nice day, but I’m not sure that he heard me. I know what stop he’ll get off at each morning. He’s my friend, but he doesn’t really know it.

A woman takes the light rail somewhere further than where I go every morning. She looks as though she is slightly older than her years and has a very slight, fragile frame. Her brown hair is always pulled into a bun or tail of some sort that is tight and bouncy enough to have attitude. She wears large, designer sunglasses on her head and she is always dressed as though she is going somewhere very professional. Her face is not lovely. It is very plain. Her cheekbones are heavily articulated, her cheeks sallow and slightly lined. She always has large bags under her eyes. Every morning when I get on the train, she has just taken out a large travel bag full of makeup. First, she puts on lipstick and lip liner and lip gloss in dark, elegant colors. She spends a great deal of time on her lips, painting over every faded spot carefully, like an artist. When she is through, they look more full and lively, but more like a painting than a human. She applies foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner. I noticed one day a slightly pink, bumpy arc above her eyes where she has plucked her eyebrows clean off and simply draws them on with a light brown eyebrow pencil. A card in her makeup bag says that she works for the California Department of Insurance and sometimes she reads a book about selling insurance to people. I also see a picture in her bag of her with a man. Her hair is down and he makeup looks much lighter. She is wearing a casual pink sweater. They look happy. I wonder who the man is. When she finishes putting on the makeup, she looks like someone else. She then puts the sunglasses over her eyes, even though it is only seven in the morning and she does not need them. I don’t think we’re friends, really.

An old lady takes the light rail each morning as well. She always has one of those utility carts with her and the light rail drivers always know what her stop is and open the door before she has even stood up. They always cast a fond glance at her and she smiles at them with a wide smile that is still somehow slight. She has very dark, black skin and her hair is in a few braids that are tucked under a black baseball cap she wears backwards. She reads a book that always looks rather crude. Her high, rounded cheekbones give her face a knowing look, a distant gaze of wisdom. She never stares at anything, but seems to be gazing back over the things she has known. Her clothes are faded and worn, but always clean. She is always clean. I wonder what has happened to her to make her so wise.

The train is like a mother. She sweeps across the city and at every stop she opens her doors to the awkward, the faded, the aged, the hidden, the wise. Every day, they return out of necessity. But it is more than necessity that keeps the train driving onwards. The train is like a mother. Her children need her.