I'm half a world away here

just about a month has passed since i got my job. due to my job i'll be taking a hip hop dance class and a drumming class. maybe those things will make me hip. maybe they'll just make me sore.

i work in downtown portland and in lieu of fighting traffic and dealing with parking and too much money for naught, i take the light rail every day. in doing so i get to look at people in a light i haven't experienced yet. every morning i take my half-mile walk to the platform with my earbuds in, playing whatever playlist i've put together. lately i've been repeating the coup's "my favorite mutiny" because i'm in love with how boots riley says, "looking for psalm number 151." and so i get a bounce in my step.

after i board the train, i pull out whatever book i'm reading so that i can pretend to be immersed in words when i'm really peering over the pages to see who boards next. my latest fascination has been with this guy who gets on one stop up from me. he rides in the same hat, same jacket, same army-green messenger bag with huge headphones. many days i've wondered what he listens to in those great big phones. i had the courage last week to finally ask him on friday. he didn't get on the train that day. or yesterday. maybe he doesn't want to tell me what he jams to during the 8 am commute.

then after the work day is done, i stroll down to another stop and board for the crowded commute home. everyone looks so tired and so sad and so done. i wonder what happened during their day that their mouth must be so downturned. i put in my headphones and wonder how much liquor that guy next to me must have had for me to choke on the fumes. what bar did he hit before boarding the yellow line? was his day that rough? i want to embrace him and give him warmth, but the reek of cheap vodka keeps me away.

then i have my walk home. the solitude i crave during the last hours of my day. it is at this point that i put r.e.m.'s "half a world away" on repeat and relish each footstep toward my north portland home. and most days i pause when i reach the I-5 overpass. i watch the lights of cars go by, chasing each other home.

i always thought michael stipe was lamenting, "this could be the saddest us i've ever seen..."

rather he sings:

This could be the saddest dusk
I’ve ever seen
Turn to a miracle
high alive
My mind is racing
As it always will
My hands tired my heart aches
I’m half a world away and go.

i fell for the dusk tonight.