To Be Writers Journal 1 - in the train

I am sitting in the train going back home from my first creative writing lesson. Nice to have some time off from my regular life and I look, unworried and relaxed, to my fellow passengers.
For the course, we are expected to keep a journal, a journal to write what you feel and think. That’s my interpretation of it. It has to be something other than my expat diary. For two weeks, I will transform my expat blog to my homework media. We’ll see how the audience will like it!?

So, I am sitting in the train and I write this posting on paper to be typed at home. The train is a good place to get some writing material. Look at me, I am stuck here, cannot go anywhere while I am actually in motion to my destination. This gives such a comforting feeling that I give myself the permission to relax and look around.

I sit in somewhere halfway in an almost empty wagon, and I watch the few other passengers. They look so regular, so uninteresting, but let me take you to their lives and you will see how interesting they can be: The guy at the front, second seat on the left with the blemished skin and crazy hair, is just back from a jam session. He never became the famous trumpet player he wanted to be – and became a dentist – but he never gave up his music. He goes every week on Monday evening to the Sunset bar, and jams for couple of hours. You can see that he still has the music in his head; he plays the rhythm with his fingers.

“NOW WE ARE APPROACHING BROOKFIELD”

Are we already at Brookfield station, this is going to be a short trip home.
The lady sleeping in the seat next to mine is a nurse. She is tired, very tired. She hopes not to miss her stop. It happened to her before. She woke up in Belmont, five stops too late. She just cannot keep her eyes open, they are just too heavy. She is supposed to work ten hours a day, giving shots, taking blood pressures, dealing with all kinds of patients. Some are friendly, others demanding, sometimes even mean. It is a hard job, but she likes it. She is good in it. Days like today, when her ten hours becomes twelve – a colleague got sick – she stays without complaining. She…” Which stop was that? Oh, OK, still two to go. Keep the eyes open, keep them open…”

“NOW APPROACHING WESTERN SPRINGS”

The guy on the back with the suit and the laptop looks around with a friendly smile. He fired to people today. Nobody really understood why those two had to go. With the current economic situation, nobody dared to ask a thing. “These are hard times”, everyone said. He is boss feared by everyone at the company. In the train though, he smiles friendly to these people he does not know.

“NEXT STOP WILL BE DOWNERS GROVE/MAIN STREET”

It is time to stop writing. I am almost home.