I realized tonight what I missed about my old commutes when I took the VRE. It wasn’t the frequent tardiness, or waiting on the platforms in hopes that your train might be on time for a change. Nor the seemingly frequent derailments and track problems (thanks CSX!).
It was because for an hour (or two…) I had an opportunity to sit down and write. My current job (ie, the last 6.5 years) doesn’t allow me to take the VRE – it simply isn’t very feasible, either for getting in or for getting home on time (not that driving does either, but at least there’s options). Tonight, I was sitting in miles (about 10+) of bumper to bumper traffic, when the muse kissed me. It was dusk going into night, and that damned muse swept down and gave me a peck on the cheek. Ideas, even a few stray lines, start drifting through my brain. Luckily traffic was moving *that* slowly that pulling out a sticky pad and quickly penning as much as I could for later was possible, at least until the end, but it was then that I realized what was nice about the VRE. It didn’t make the commute any shorter, but it gave me time to sleep, read, and write 🙂
Now to get the kids ready for bed and transcribe these notes into my journal. It was a real talking with the waldgeist kind of moment that I need to make sure is recorded well.