Subway Stories: Kenmore + More

For the past several years, the subway and bus station at Kenmore have not been fun to navigate. I dreaded going there.

But it finally appears to be complete. I had to wait for the bus the other day and the weather wasn't bad, so I took a few pictures with my phone. My bus arrived on time too!

Since I haven't written about my adventures on the T in a while, I decided to combine them all into one. The next story is a quick one, but really made me think.

I was reading and leaning against the door on the Braintree train going home. A woman who was sitting next to me was reading something and suddenly let out an audible gasp. I don't remember, but I must have looked at her and given a strange look.

When she got up to leave the train, she turned to me and said that it was an article she was reading. She looked sad and was shaking her head as she spoke. "There's no respect. No way to live with dignity anymore."

It was such a loaded statement and so without any hope. She was walking out the door, so I couldn't counter with anything more positive and try to cheer her up. So I just shook my head along with her in agreement. I wonder what she was reading.

+++++

The last story is about natural hair, which I've written about here before.

I was sitting on a bench at South Station waiting for my train to go home. A black woman around my age walked toward me, smiled and asked if she could sit next to me. I smiled back and said, "Of course."

She told me that she loved my hair and that she was natural too, but nobody can tell, because she flat irons it. She didn't want to straighten it, but said that when she wore her hair in its natural state, nobody would speak to her at work. I was shocked! I told her that I haven't had any negative reaction to my hair, but I guess it depends where you work.

We talked about all the time and money we wasted relaxing our hair and how we both wished that we had gone natural sooner. We talked about how so many young women are going natural now and all the beautiful hair styles.

The train arrived and she said it had been nice talking to me. She walked toward a seat and sat down. I was having a great time talking and got on the same train. But didn't want to seem stalkerish and continue the conversation if she didn't want to. So I sat down across from her and read my book. When I got off the train, I caught her eye, smiled, and wished her a good night.



Anali's First Amendment © 2006-2012. All rights reserved.
This Post’s Link
Follow me on Twitter. Join me on Facebook.