I never planned on being a commuter. Some days I look at the cars in the parking lot lined up in rows and the miles and miles of track being swallowed under the train and wonder how I got here. I seek out depictions of Westchester commuters in the short stories of John Cheever or the early seasons of Mad Men and imagine this somehow ennobles the hours I spend traveling back and forth and back and forth like a piston in a cylinder chamber. It works briefly as I sip my scotch and read that big red book of Cheever stories in which he describes Grand Central station the way Renaissance painters depicted cathedrals. Then on the 6:45 back to my green house on Hudson I walk past somebody eating pasta out of a plastic bowl, their complexion a shade of florescent gray and it all gets torn down again. There are positive sides to it. I can sit comfortably watching a wild landscape as I listen to an audio book and it  almost feels  like I'm on vacation. I've also never read so much in my life. The speed and rhythm of the train is soothing. It seems to travel at the pace of my thoughts and almost never stops for traffic. A lot of morning commuters use the time to nap, which feels oddly intimate. I rarely do but find myself dozing on the way back home, which brings back terrible flashbacks to the time I fell asleep on my way back from a boozy party and woke up 30 minutes past my stop at 2am with no cash and no phone reception. Some days hearing the hole punch of the conductors validating tickets I'm reminded of one of my favorite Serge Gainsbourg songs - Le Poinconneur des Lilas about a train conductor who is defeated by the weight of the relentlessly mundane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CHHsd46rcc