The Symphony

Last night Gary and I rode the commuter rail in to Symphony Hall to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This is not a regular occasion for Gary and I and it was nice to get away from our normal routine and do something different. We talked a lot about how we would get there because it would mean taking the commuter rail and then a green line T ride. We would have to be in and out of there dependent on someone else's schedule and it would be a long ride. However we chose to go this way and I am glad that we did.
Now that I live up on the hill here in West Gloucester, sometimes I can spend days on end in my own head, which is never a good place to be. Lately with all of the snow I have been stuck up here for long periods of time. Time in which I literally don't see anyone but my own family. Some people might love this experience but I am a person who really needs to be around people. I am not a person that necessarily needs to talk to people all the time or anything like that. I just really like the idea that there are other people around, in this world with me.
On the commuter rail there was a scruffy looking man who got on with back pack on back and two small boys, also sporting back packs. I was dying to know what they were doing there and I loved listening to this man with these boys on the way in. I imagined that they were running away from something or that he was recently divorced and had no car and so he had to shuttle his boys to his ex's house via the commuter rail. I imagined that they were recently homeless and trying to find a place to live. I imagined all sorts of things. It turns out that one of the boys was his son, another was his nephew and he was taking them for a sleepover at the Museum of Science yesterday.
People got on the train with their instruments and I thought about Gary as a younger man traveling around with his guitar on his back and I thought about the time when I left my mothers house at the age of 22 in search of my own situation. It was in a huff and a long time coming and when I left I, too carried a guitar on my back. Somehow it signified something to me at the time. Gary had been teaching me to play and although I never did anything with it music and Gary have followed me around ever since.
I saw people come on alone and people come in groups. I saw black people and white people and Spanish speaking people and people speaking languages I don't know.
When we got in to North Station Gary and I had some time to kill so we ate a sandwich at this little pub and that also was really interesting to me. We talked about what it must be like to work in a place like this where everything is so transient, so changing and ebbing and flowing. There was a man next to me who looked as if he may be a regular but that was more of a sad looking story than anything. The young female bartender was describing a patron to her coworker and she said, "you know him, he is like, well a little older like 30 or 40." and I made fun of Gary for this the rest of the night and he smiled with me a lot.
On the green line we were squished together like sardines but I didn't mind. I loved listening to different conversations. There was a really uptight young man sitting with his girlfriend and I felt so sad for her. I kept wanting to reach over and tell her how many other guys there were out there and that she shouldn't waste her life with such a stuffy guy. And then there was this adorable young couple goofing off together and I held all the hope in the world for their future. There was a group of drunk 20 something girls half dressed and obnoxious and I prayed none of my daughters would act like that one day and there was this little old lady clutching her bag, worried.
I stared at them all and I got to know them.
And then just like that they were gone and we were out on the street walking toward Symphony Hall.
The Symphony was magical and my brain and ears are still swimming.
On the train ride home I slept on Gary's lap and we arrived quicker through my sleep.
When we got off the train there was a guy limping and he asked us for a ride in to Gloucester and I thought, "no you can't give him a ride, he could have a gun or a knife, get in the car." But instead we opened the car and let him in and I learned that sometimes believing in people is enough.