Fourth Form of Madness

For about a two year now I have been sitting next to the same elderly gentlemen most mornings in on the train.  I first sat down next to him as he caught my eye as I boarded the train.  He sat, eyes downcast, shoulders hunched and hands together and wedged between his knees.  The fragility and brokenness of his body posture and spirit moved me.  As I watched everyone else walk past him and find alternative seating, I sank into the seat beside him and thus began our train relationship.

After about two months of choosing my seat beside him on the mornings where our train trip aligned, I started to give a “good morning” smile when I sat down beside him and occasionally our eyes would meet.  I noted early on that he likes to keep everything the same in his life as much as possible.  He sits in the same seat every day and wears the same outfit, black pants and an old slightly worn motorcycle sweater.

Perhaps six months pass and we are up to a verbal “Good morning” and eye contact with a warm smile as I resume my seat beside him on the morning train.  He always gets off a stop before me and this is at this point still done in complete silence.  I move first, so he can leave and he shuffles past me with downcast eyes and spirit.

At around the year mark, we have built our relationship into a warm “good morning” and a cheery “have a nice day” on departure.  But things really reached a pinnacle about a month ago when the elderly gentlemen initiated conversation himself.  It was cold May morning, and just happened to be my birthday.  I boarded the train, we greeted each other warmly as usual and as I started to pull out my book to start reading he said “Cold morning isn’t it? You have to rug up to keep warm now”.  I agreed and we shared a warm smile and another joke about the weather.  He went back to staring out the window as he loves to do and I sat pretending to read my book.  But I couldn’t read as I was too touched at the connection that had just occurred.  It might not had seemed much to anyone else but the elderly, shy and withdrawn gentlemen had chosen to connect on his own terms.  And that was a very brave and courageous act for someone that appeared so fearful of life and other people.  His courage moved me deeply.

As I rode in that morning glowing from the warmth of our connected little community of two we had created on the train, I looked around at the rest of the train commuters.  Everywhere people were together and yet alone  and I felt a heavy sadness.  Why does disconnection from others feel like the “norm” and connecting with others, with people we don’t know, has become the almost “abnormal, frowned upon by society” behaviour?  Why does connecting with unknown or people that are different from our walk of life now make us feel uncomfortable and fearful?  What would the world be like if we could reverse this fear and we started trusting and believing in the innate goodness of others again and we started choosing to connect to each other.  What would the world look like if we could all share the courage of this elderly gentlemen on the train and chose to connect despite our fears.