StorySLAM: Transit

For a while, I've been tracking The Moth which is a forum for storytelling, through digital media and in-person. As they describe it themselves, The Moth is:

The Story Behind Stories 

The Moth's mission is to promote the art and craft of storytelling and to honor and celebrate the diversity and commonality of the human experience.

The prompt for their StorySLAM in Chicago this month is "transit," which seems wildly appropriate given what I've spent the last year learning and doing in my work-life.

TRANSIT: Prepare a five-minute story about planes, trains, and automobiles. Getting from A to B and notable moments along the way. The Boeing 747, the F train, or the Volvo. That attractive stranger on the plane, the time your soup spilled on the bus, or crying in traffic. Regale us with tales of commutes, fastened seat belts and left turns. 

I plan on going with my coworker friend to see if we can get tickets at the door since the online ones are already sold out. Here's an attempt at my story about transit.

TRANSIT

I work for a company called Arity. We are a mobility insights company that's aimed at making transportation safer, smarter, and more useful for everyone. So I think about transit all day. But I don't want to talk about Arity or sell you any revolutionary solutions that will transform your business. In fact, what I want to talk about are the moments in my life when I have been un-safe, un-smart, and un-useful with my transit decisions.

Let's start with the summer of 2005 when I went abroad for the first time to attend an immersive language program in Beijing. I went potluck for the roommate situation, and I really lucked out -- somehow every strange idea that I threw her way, she agreed it was a good idea. For example, when we arrived at our dorm room the first day, I assessed the space and told her that if we pushed our beds together we could have one giant super bed and a lot more floor space. Not knowing me at all, she said OK and we shared "super bed" for the rest of the summer. Please note that there are no intentions for this use of "super bed" to have any sexual connotations at all. It was just a big bed that was in fact, super.

Anyways, I lead with that story to say that she was open to my quirky ideas on how to experience Beijing. The next thing that I convinced her of was to buy bikes from the people on the street who had clearly stolen them for profit. "It's what the locals would do," I explained to her. We bought bikes.

And off to conquer the city we went. It really was one of the better decisions we made that summer, even though my biking skills were poor at best, and even though she could barely read "right" and "left" in Chinese, and even though we did not wear helmets. Regardless, there was something very liberating about biking through one of the most congested and polluted cities in the world on dingy bikes that were designed to be stolen and resold until they fell apart. We got to our destinations faster and cheaper than our other classmates, and we got to literally be a part of the streets of Beijing every time we went for adventures.

I learned when I returned to the States that drivers expect you to follow rules, as if there are traffic laws, and that riding dead face-on into traffic is frowned upon. It doesn't work with the system, even if you are in the small college town of College Station, Texas.

Speaking of systems, the first few times I took public transit in Chicago were rather jolting. Before I moved here, I wasn't used to being jostled around on rickety train lines. And as a person who's incredibly prone to becoming motion sick, I didn't always take it well. Knowing this, my sister would usually pick me up from the airport when I came to visit, since I am but a fragile tulip that gets motion sick so easily. But once she challenged me to take the train in because she was busy.

I accepted. I thought I would be fine, now having ridden the train a few times already. But I hadn't always taken the train just after coming off a plane ride, which is also a potential trigger for motion sickness as there is motion involved. As I rode the Blue Line in, I just got sicker and sicker with every leg of the journey.

Go.
Ugh.
Stop.
Ugh.
Jostle jostle.
Ugh.
Still not there.
Ugh.
So loud!
Ugh.

I kept telling myself I would make it, but my mind is only so strong. Finally when I was only two stops away from my destination, I couldn't hold myself together any longer and threw up right there on the train. I remember spewing my guts out and then looking up at the CTA attendant who was standing right there.

"Sorry," I muttered feebly.
"It's okay, baby," she replied.

All the other passengers on my train car didn't feel as sympathetic and scattered immediately.

As a native Texan, the main form of transit is your own personal car. Nobody takes the bus, there is no train, and you always drive no matter where you're going, whether it's within the same shopping strip or just down the street. Once I left Texas, I learned that transit isn't always easy to figure out and it isn't always easy to stomach, but it is definitely the best way to experience a city. Just like some go to the woods in order to connect and identify with our natural environment -- transit is what lets us into the network that connects our urban environment.

I feel a little triumphant every time I take the bus or train in a new place especially, kind of like that feeling when you're hanging out with a new friend and they laugh really, really hard like they get you. When I feel like that, I can't help but smile because I have a secret -- that my train ride is actually connecting me to the millions of others who are currently in transit.

I won't say that every train ride I take feels so magical. But I will admit that there are days that I take the long way around the Loop to get to work because I want to feel the soothing hum, swing my short legs off the seat, and see the city in motion for just a little bit longer.