Look Ma, no hands!

Goodness, I've left you all hungry for public transportation tales, haven't I! (At least, in my fabulously delirious world, you were....ahem). The week long absence is partially because I left the world of public transportation for a while, and had the delight of riding in a car for a few days. Yes, a car!

But alas, we must all return to our true selves. And for me, that means the Path, the subway, and the like. Of course, with routine, one falls into auto-pilot. During this past exhausting week, I especially felt like a zombie (or a really drugged out rocker).

Wake up. Get dressed. Walk to Path. Wait with crowd. Inch to front of crowd. Lean back as Path arrives. Walk into car. Nudge teetering high-heeled girl out of the way to get a seat. Sit. Fall asleep. Wake up at stop. Walk to subway. Wait with crowd.

And so it goes.

It takes very little to knock me from my routine. Even when the girl sitting four people down from me has her iPod on SO LOUD that I can hear it, even that doesn't annoy me. Really. It doesn't.

But today, something did knock me, did make me look up from my book, and focus on the scene before me. The reason?

Take Your Kid to Work Day.

In case you didn't know (or just have a general hatred/fear of small children, as many understandably do), today was the day when parents could take their wee ones to work. To show them real life. To explain what they will be doing in 10 years. To quietly whisper, "Stay in school for as long as you can, so you never have to enter this world."

As it was TYKTWD, children were on the Path. And in one in particular caught my eye. A cute kid, a boy, dressed in a striped blue and grey shirt, with a knapsack (labeled with his father's work logo) slung over his back. He stood with his dad in the center of the Path, holding onto a pole, his eyes large as he took in us weary travelers. The boy focused on all of us for a bit, and then, turned his attention to balancing.

As the train flew forward, he slowly let go of the pole with one hand. Then the other. He spread his hands out at his side, palms down, and braced his feet like a surfer. The boy stared at the ground, his brow furrowed. The train swerved this way and that, so he leaned this way and that. A few times, he lost his balance and stumbled, but quickly re-gained. Once he got the groove for about 15 solid seconds, he looked up with wide eyes.

And grinned right at me.

It was the glee he had, this child. He took the daily routine that we all blindly stumble through, and he found the magic in it. The thing that we all (decades ago) would have also found. And even though moments after he grinned at me, the train turned and subsequently threw him into the pole (eh, don't worry, he bounced back), for about ten seconds, he found pure joy in the mundane.

And, not to get sappy, but couldn't we all use a little more pure joy? A little nugget of glee (and no, I don't mean as in Sue Sylvester....though I would take a little Matthew Morrison) to carry with us for the day?

So do yourself a favor. Go out there and let go of the pole. Even if it's for five seconds.

Balance with no hands.