Osler's Razor

In Advent, I often take a break from Political Mayhem Thursday, a tradition I will keep this year.  (Though my piece yesterday in the Huffington Post created enough tumult for a while).  Instead, I am going to describe a few images that I can't get out of my head-- things that haunt me in the quiet moments we should be seeking in this season.

I was on the subway in New York at about 5:10 pm.  I was riding the 2 train, an express that goes up the west side of the city carrying all kinds of people-- it's a very diverse group, from the homeless to financial mavens riding from work to home.  It was a cold, snowy day, and people were wreathed in warm clothes.

On a train like that you are smashed in together, and there is a certain beauty to it, something that flows from the destruction of our normal sense of personal space.  There are certain unspoken rules in that situation, though.  For example, it seems to be transgressive to look anyone else in the eyes for more than a moment, even though their eyes are only inches from you own, and it's not an easy thing to avoid.

At 14th Street, a woman got on and was packed in beside me.  She was a little older than I am, and looked like someone I might know.  I made the mistake of looking her in the eye to see if I did, and she quickly turned away. 

She was wearing one of those thin-but-warm down jackets, in dark blue.  She had the hood up, with wisps of her blond bob sticking out and the temples of her glasses tucked underneath.  I looked down to see her shoes, and found that she was wearing those wonderful LL Bean shoes with the rubber uppers-- nothing keeps feet warmer and drier.  Clearly, she was coming from or going to a situation where she would be outside for a while in the snow, perhaps walking to or from the train.

There was something about her that did remind me of women I have known my whole life-- well-educated, readers, someone who can discuss theory-- that are a good chunk of the productive population of places like Grosse Pointe and Edina and Yale.  "Do I know her?" I thought to myself, "or is she just like someone I know?"

The train rattled into Penn Station and the doors opened; more people pressed in, so that her hip was pressed against mine.  Her face was now less than a foot away, close enough to read the name of the designer on the inside of the frames of her glasses.  I noticed that she had a purse in one hand and a shopping bag in the other, clutched tightly in leather-gloved hands. 

The doors closed and the wheels screeched as we left the station towards Times Square.  People settled into their positions, and other than the sounds of the car itself, there was quiet.

I looked up and saw a tear rolling down her cheek.

It wasn't melting snow or ice; it was silent crying.  Her face was set hard and cold, but could not betray the truth of that tear as it traced over the curve of her cheek, moving slowly over the skin.  I stared, I know-- I couldn't help it, because there was something ineffably beautiful, remarkably human about the moment.

I wondered why she didn't wipe away the tear, with just a quick motion and the back of her hand, but realized that with the bags in her hands, her arms were trapped beside her body among the crush of people.  She was helpless.  The tear continued its snail crawl, inexorable, determined.  I saw it move in super close-up, from only a few inches away.

There was an overwhelming urge within me to reach up and do what she could not-- wipe away that tear.

I did not, though.  It felt too transgressive, too intimate, to touch her skin, if even for a moment; to recognize that I knew she was crying, that I knew she had something so sad, so true, that trapped and helpless deep on the 2 train she could not hold it back.

She was, as I said, like so many people I have known and been.