My comfort zone

 

Apparently I look twenty six and Mauritian. Those who know me would giggle kindly at this description. The passenger on the train this morning who relayed it to me thought he was being sweet, I guess. I just want to get home. Disinterested in his small talk, my quiet demeanour hopefully came off as shyness. It is too early in the morning, I am stuck without a car unexpectedly and I need to start my day. That’s all. I do not want to talk about the great weather, or the up-coming football season or the traffic. I need to get from A to B and this train ride was not in my plan. There’s something about the phrase public transport that either does it for you or doesn’t. When it’s brought up in conversation the debate that follows has the potential to leak into all sorts of political and social realms. Almost always though it comes with stories of excruciating experiences of having to deal with other humans who’ve inadvertently stepped into your comfort zone. On a different day I would have welcomed the chance to speak aimlessly about nothing for a while to someone I didn’t know and didn’t have to worry about. Today the fact that I don’t has left me with a feeling that lines my insides with guilty frustration. 

A few years ago I took a  photo I affectionately used to call the National Geographic shot. Look what I’ve captured, I proudly thought to myself. I even thought I’d seen the image before somewhere; the two women seemed to epitomise my expectations of beautiful and exotic. Back then my eyes skimmed past the reality but years later, as I sit here with my time on this train,  I find the vision back in my thoughts. They were two women without space to breath. Two women who could not avoid the smell of each other if they wanted to. Two women whose faces pressed together as the weight of the people behind them pushed them so close that they could almost taste each other. Two women who were not friends. Two women who had no room for small talk. One woman, with her hair brushed and pulled back neatly and some makeup applied to her face; her finger sporting a shiny ring  – was off to work. The other whose exhausted face showed the lines of her harsh life, was off to somewhere. The window next to them was open not only to let the air in; as the women hung out of it they were so thankful for the extra inch of space it ever so slightly provided them. This would be the only bus for hours. Miss it and they would be late… If time is what mattered to them.

Recently I have begun considering space; the fuss we make about it, how much we take it for granted, how we either attract or repel others towards our own personal invisible circle, which we shrink or expand accordingly. My thoughts drift back to that bus stop in Northern India. If I close my eyes I can see all the other things that were on the bus; chickens, goats, boxes, cages, bags – all forced to find a space between the people. I remember that when I tried to board the bus myself I was politely told that this transport was only for locals, not suitable for foreigners. My bus would be coming soon.

It makes me wonder why I was not allowed on the bus. Was it because I wouldn’t be able to cope with the lack of personal space? Do we take space too seriously? Are we too precious about it being invaded? I take a more scrupulous look at the photo in my head and I feel a sense of closeness between the women; they will push up against each other and in doing so offer a support that I would not be able to ask of anyone on this entire train. It suddenly occurs to me – I am sitting here all alone. Comfortable in my invisible bubble of space.  Giving off vibes of ‘do not come closer’ and ‘do not initiate conversation with me because I don’t have time for you’ to anyone who glances in my direction.

As my heart-rate begins to increase with thoughts of my kids and partner waiting for me on the other end of my train journey; as lists of chores begin piling up in my head alongside work, school and everything else I am running late for, my reality hits me: I have my own stack of things to fit into spaces on my own bus. And here I am, standing in my comfort zone at the train stop. There is no one for me to push away from or push up against or reach out to and feel close enough to ask for help.