No Stone Left Unturned

Thursday, October 7, 2004, 4:11pm

Through the outer bowels of South Station this afternoon we once again drag-race the Forge Park Local – a Thursday afternoon ritual it seems – and something I realize must happen most other weekdays even when I’m not around to notice. First they take the lead, and now we’re pulling by fast as the other train hesitates. Once again for my Thursday outbound commute I’m aboard the last car sitting inside this ancient ‘blue seat’ carriage with lots of legroom. But that is the extent of my good planning. This time of year the sun fails to swing very far north during the late afternoon and facing forward this way drives the southwest sunlight streaming into my face. From what I recall, in a mile or two the train should veer a little bit to the south and soon only the engineer will face the setting sun.

Behind the great green wall warehouses and apartment buildings northeast of Fenway Park block most sunlight until we reach the vast office parking lot at Yawkey Station where the scene reveals open sky once more. In a few weeks the clocks will return to Standard Time and by mid-November this same vista will be shrouded in darkness from aboard even this earliest of the evening commuting trains. Thereafter I won’t be seeing any daylight on my way home until March or April.

Boston can feel cramped when snaking behind tall buildings in a fast-moving train, yet here in the city much more of the outdoor space is accessible space compared to the suburbs. If I cut through that parking at Yawkey Station on foot, nobody would care. In the suburbs, if I did the same sort of short-cutting through similar parking areas, I might wind up in the not-so-friendly glare of a private security cop.

In suburbia most of the open land is locked firmly into a strong sense of ownership and wariness towards trespassing. Even the most wide-open quasi-public places like shopping malls lack a truly public sense like I might feel at Fanueil Market or walking across the 1899 Bridge into South Boston. In the city nobody bats an eye if I walk around with camera photographing whatever I want – but try this at the Natick Mall and it wouldn’t be long before someone wanders out from their hidden hole to investigate.

This is speculation, of course, since for nearly three decades I haven’t walked around any city with a camera, and for all I know we are monitored from the moment we arrive.

Rolling west, tonight’s outbound train is edging south as predicted with sunlight hardly sneaking through our port side windows. Parting ways with Pike for a time we veer even further to the south pushing the sunset to the starboard side of the train. Now, with trees lining most the way from here to Worcester I’m expect little more in the way of annoying sunset glare and am feeling better about my seat choice for this evening.

At 65mph Wellesley Hills feels like a toy village – odd how my mind assumes things must be smaller when passing by quickly. Why not see this as simply moving at a faster pace rather than shrinking the scene in my visualization to fit some preconceived notion? My mind’s eye always seems at odds with reality – forming its own visual truth to maintain an underlying equilibrium. It’s as though the equilibrium itself is the sacred and unimpeachable element while the reality of the Universe remains open to variation.