Sunday, March 5, 2017

Nowhere to go and all day to get there

Just boarded the airport train at Lindbergh Center, starting my day's trip to Munich, the first of 2 Munich trips I'll do before Friday. Tethered in the wheelchair "stall" at the front of my car is a grocery shopping cart containing the worldly belongings of a fellow train-rider. I cast a glance at the 7 or 8 other riders in my car wondering, "Whose is it?"  The answer is not obvious; I can't even hazard a guess at first look. 

How different that person's reality is from mine, by what means?  Birth?  Choices?  Fate?  Some combination of those things and others?  The circumstances that guide his/her priorities and decisions are so different from mine. How could I begin to understand them?

Yet we are absolutely equal in all things that matter. Neither has any more or less value than the other. 

So far, we've traveled as far south as Peachtree Center and the cart remains unmoved and unclaimed. It will likely reach the southern terminus of the line and turn around north, whence it came, destination-less. 

No where to go and all day to get there:  I have met my antithesis.

As I exited the train, I realized that the cart remained tethered in place, as did one fellow train rider. He was a noble, yet somehow defiant-looking gentleman of about my age, I'd guess.

Our eyes met as I neared the door. I smiled. He raised his chin in a very dignified way and pretended not to notice."