Minimally Eschew

Portrait of a girl
freezing her butt
off at a train
station.

I don’t know much about New Brunswick.

Yesterday around 2:00 pm I was sitting in the New Brunswick train station glaring at the large red sign that proudly announced that the town in which I was temporary but unhappily stranded was the home of Rutgers University. In that moment I hated Rutgers University. I hated that sign. I was halfway to hating the color red, just for its involvement in the whole matter.

I was very very cold. I am not good at being cold.

I sat out on that train platform for maybe an hour. My ears pink from the wind that rattled the branches of the trees that dared to creep up along the edges of the chain link fence. Small slivers of green, trying their very hardest to brighten up the concrete behemoth where I stood shivering.

The tracks let up a small electric hum.

The train pulled in at 2:47 p.m. and I climbed aboard.

The inside was warmer, though just barely. I curled up on my seat (there are some advantages to being short) and pulled my headphones out.

I missed this place more then I knew was possible

I like to think that I’ve gotten good at traveling. I’m never the person holding up the security line at the airport and my ticket is always in hand when the train conductor makes his way around.

But not yesterday. Yesterday I was a cold mess.

Let me rewind about 48 hours for some context.

NFTY kids are the greatest.

This weekend I staffed a Kallah (weekend long event) for teenagers from New Jerey. , which means I got to go back to Kutz (where I spent this past summer), hang out with some awesome teenagers, see a bunch of my friends, and stay up much, much too late while I waited for freshman girls on sugar highs to finally fall asleep.

I’d missed that. The weekend long escapes to a world where enthusiasm is the norm and excitement sparks in the air like the fireflies of summer. The friends who I may only have seen a few times a year but who get me. The discussions I had, the way they made me think and made me feel and made me understand the world around me new and different ways.

Also I got to dress up like an ipod
playing my favorite song
so that was fun.

Now I’m home. Back in my apartment. Curled in to a ball, shivering under blankets with Gilmore Girls on the TV and a kettle on the stove. I’m cozy and comforted by the fact that, sometimes, I get to sit on train platforms and feel wind stinging my checks and wipe the sleep from the corners of my eyes.

Those cold and grumpy moments are worth it. They are worth it for the moments that come before; the moments where I get to help bring joy and connection to others. I feel I am my best self in those moments, and they make a few hours on a (very!) cold train platform in New Brunswick more than worthwhile.

Electric Hum