[If you missed the post about my train ride to Southern California for a job interview, click here, then click here for part one of this story.]
The guy across the aisle from us senses that the guy next to me isn’t speaking a foreign language, but has some kind of heavy accent so he asks, “Where are you from originally?” The guy next to me tells him that he is from Thailand. The guy across the aisle then asks the guy next to me how long he has lived here in the United States. Thus proceeds a conversation that I really don’t want any part of. All I can think about is how long this 29 hour train ride is going to affect me as I’m trying to be at the top of my game during my job interview coming up. Wishing I had the extra $250 it would have cost to have flown this leg of the trip as well.
I finally end up dozing off for awhile and wake up realizing that my cellphone battery was pretty low. I had left my ac adapter at home so my wife could charge her ipod, so I was left with taking out my Macbook, plugging that into the ac outlet in the train, and charging my iPhone via the USB port. As I’m taking out my Macbook from my bag, the guy sitting next to me says, “computer?” to which I respond with a simple “yes.” Then, he asks me, “laptop?” This trips my annoyance meter into the red zone. I think to myself, what kind of idiot that knows my Macbook is a computer, doesn’t also recognize that it’s a laptop as well? Not to be rude, I respond again with “yes.” He then asks me what I’m going to do with my computer. I tell him that I’m not doing anything other than charging my cellphone with it. He then chuckles and says, “Oh, your battery is dead, huh?” to which I say, “No, but it’s getting really low.” While not a reply, he then says, “I have to go pee.” Great! He can’t ask for a pillow properly, but he can sure tell the whole train that he has to go to the bathroom.
So now, I notice that every time the guy next to me does something, he has to mention it out loud. He tells me when he has to go to the bathroom, when he feels the urge to get off at a stop to smoke a cigarette, and when he feels like he wants a soda. He smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank a lot of soda over the course of the 27 hours we’d be seated next to each other.
The train is due into Los Angeles late, at around 12:30am Thursday (we left Portland at 7:00pm Tuesday) and for some reason at around 3pm Wednesday, I’m feeling like I’m in the home stretch. As I look out the window I see familiar parts of the San Francisco Bar Area and the central coast. I’m feeling relieved that I won’t have to spend another night in this seat trying to sleep for an hour or two at a time. Then, I hear that voice again. This time, it’s not just one word questions like, “apollo?” or “computer?” Nope. This time he’s asking me a question and I can tell he wants to engage me in a conversation. Can’t I just finish out this journey in peace and be left alone in silence? He’s asking me whether I live in Los Angeles? I tell him that I live in Oregon, but am just going to Los Angeles to visit. He then tells me in some very broken English, that his family lives in Oregon and he can’t wait to get home to San Luis Obispo. His stop is only a few hours away and I again begin to feel relieved that after that I’ll be rid of this guy that has been annoying me. Big sigh of relief emerges. Silence ensues for a couple of hours after that, except for the two times he told me, “I’m going to get a soda. Don’t worry, I can buy. I go get soda.”
I’m finally being left alone--allowed to look out my window at the vast farmland of the California central coast in silence. The guy is still sitting next to me, but he too is looking out the window in silence. I’m thinking that life is good and mentally working through my schedule of what I need to do during my one day in the Los Angeles area. Then, it hits me. My mind goes immediately from my upcoming schedule to how much of a jerk I am. Actually, the term I remember hearing in my mind sounded more like a word that rhymes with “gas pole.” Yeah, that was me. Too self-centered and focused on my woes to even realize it. Don’t get me wrong--my public actions were all okay. I was polite, responded to the guy’s questions, didn’t look like he was annoying me. It’s what was going on inside my head that was the problem. It’s what leads me to the conclusion that I truly do suck and I have issues I still need to resolve within myself that no one aside from me knows about… Well, no one knew about them until now.
I tell myself that this guy next to me, the guy who I viewed as a nuisance, must have a story. I remember him telling the guy across the aisle from us that he was originally from Thailand. This guy had a name and he deserved to be treated differently than I had done. I nicknamed the guy Apollo, but that was pretty demeaning. I sit in my seat, silently staring out the window. As the landscape rolls by, I have no clue what is out there as I am so deeply focused on how I suck and am such a jerk and why I don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as this guy next to me. I begin to think about how well this guy is handling being stuck in a train for over 20 hours with some dude he doesn’t know, yet he seems to be at peace and enjoying the ride. He doesn’t need long, drawn out explanations and is totally acceptable of my replies of just “yes.” to his questions. He’s almost child-like in his nature, and I begin to think fondly of how I wish my life could be more like that. How only being able to afford a ticket for a train ride instead of a $250 ticket for a two-hour flight has inflicted deep pain on my comfortable existence. That because I must be responsible for my life and the welfare of others, that I have to make this journey to secure a job before moving away from Oregon at the end of the month. Me, me, me, me… It makes me begin to well-up a bit--not at the agony of my life, but at how I wish I could see life so simply like the guy next to me. Ashamed of myself and what I’ve become, my eyes stare down at the floor. There I see something for the first time. The guy’s backpack is on the floor and on it is a piece of masking tape. Written in black marker on the tape is his name, Lee K--g (letters intentionally omitted for privacy).
I decide now is the time to stop thinking like a gas pole (you know what I mean) and learn about this guy’s story. He’s no longer some guy. His name is Lee and he’s from Thailand and his family lives in Oregon. So, I begin to ask him some questions about Oregon, his family, how long he has lived in San Luis Obispo. I learn that Lee actually lives in a different city, but that San Luis Obispo is the closest stop. That he doesn’t get to visit his family much because travel is too expensive (Boy, can I totally relate to that!) and that he lives in a group home where he is a driver. With that, he seemed to disconnect from wanting any more conversation and I decided to respect that. My opportunity came and went, but at least I was able to learn a bit more about my seat mate Lee and change the way I was thinking about him.
My time with Lee on the Amtrak is one I hope to never forget. I want to see Lee’s face and hear his voice every time my mind wanders to my needs at the expense of others. When I am having trouble understanding what someone is saying, I want to hear “apollo” loudly in my head so that I remember to stop and take the time to listen or help. Here I am, someone who has adamantly been vocal about the prejudice my Japanese mother had trying to live in America as an American, yet everyone looked at her as some oriental foreigner that should learn better English, I was somehow prejudiced in my view of Lee. Before boarding the train in Portland last week, I would have never thought something like that could have happened within me. As I think about it, I still have no idea what triggered my internal thoughts to be what they were. I’m an introvert and my natural tendency is to avoid people, rather than gravitate towards them, but this was inexcusable. Why it happened isn’t really important. That it never rears its ugly head again is what I must strive for.
Thank you Lee for showing me that I am not all I think I am--that I am a continual work in progress that will never know perfection. That I have a big, fat plank in my eye that I must focus on. May I suck a little bit less every day as stories such as this continue to shape my development.
