I should have a plan. The warnings keep coming. Transportation is not an issue. I work from home. But I still need to walk my dog. I have enough ingredients to make chicken soup and beef stew. Cereal, eggs, are shelved as usual. The temperature inside my house can be regulated with the push of a button. The upstairs always gets hot. Kitchen-level is comfortable and the basement, cool. It’s the opposite of how air outside works. And the air outside is changing.
The red berries on my holly bush have turned black. Ice encases all the tree branches. Squirrels hide in their dens. Plowed snow mounds tower above my head. January in Chicago is cold. The city averages seven days of below zero temperatures annually. Its coldest official temperature was -27 degrees on January 20th in 1985. I was young then and single. During the winter of 2013-14 there were 23 days recorded with subzero temperatures. I was married then, with a teenage son. Why was I fretting now?
Heading toward Chicago on a Metra commuter train I didn’t notice the woman who sat down beside me until she said, “I hope you don’t feel crowded.” She had pushed a large piece of luggage toward her legs to clear the aisle. There was a Cub’s game that day and the train was packed with fans. The woman also held a small backpack. She was going somewhere beyond a day trip to Chicago.
When you’ve been on a train for many hours the Lounge car offers a get-away. During the day, people take in the sites through the large glass windows that arch up to the train’s roof. If you don’t like your seatmate or want a window seat, the Lounge car is the place to go. Retired couples play cards. Families with young children spread out game pieces. College kids lean back with their knees tucked to their chests listening to music through their ear buds. Photographers click their cameras. I didn’t sense a natural way to interact with the people in the Lounge car that day. With invoices and a checkbook laid out in front of her, I wouldn’t interrupt a woman who was busy paying her bills.
Time doesn’t matter much while on a passenger train, but it was late. I walked slowly back to my seat balancing my stride through two darkened cars. I stared at the bodies at rest. Their slumber postures showed mouths opened yet silent, heads bowed as if in prayer, arms around each other or dangling in the aisle. A woman’s head rested across her seat into the aisle as if ready for a guillotine. There are no seat belts on trains, so whatever position works is the one a tired passenger will take.