Missing

What don’t I do if I have to ride the bus from here to the train and catch another bus on the other end? Do I skip the early worship or sacrifice a good night’s sleep? Do I go places that mean another transfer, another route, another line or another walk? What do I miss when I’ve already spent fifteen hours on buses and trains and just want to sit and be still for a day. Maybe the groceries wait until tomorrow or we never get to the library. If I make it to the market, it’ll be the one closest to me, even if that means I can’t buy as much. But even if the prices are okay, what don’t I buy when I have to carry my bags? When the backs of my legs ache and my fingers cramp from trekking through the cold?

And what do I miss when I adopt the vacant look and stare out the window or bury my nose in my book instead of smiling and saying hello or talking to the person behind me in line? Smiles break open our masks of anonymity and of otherness. “Hello.” “Good morning.” “Thank you.” What does it cost me? If you were going to rob me, it would have happened already. Instead you pull the line for the stop ahead and help me find my way. You laugh with me as we begin a new day. At night, on the way home, we’re quieter, more weary and maybe more wary because the darkness envelops us as night falls and we’re still not home. 

And even when I get home, when I am a mama or a daddy, what do I miss? Excited stories about the school day or playground, anguished teenage narratives and dinner table conversations because we’re sapped from bobbing and weaving through the city streets. 

Part of my reflections of a two-week experience living in Chicago's Hyde Park, studying urban pastoral education and riding Chicago Transit everywhere.