Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 9:12am
Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 9:12am
This morning I’m riding the last inbound commuter train – the 8:45am out of Ashland. By way of explanation, I’m late for reasons unrelated to the trains. It seems the Ashland post office will keep trying to deliver a package to our sleeping or otherwise empty house until someone stumbles to the door, or their letter carriers give up. Rather than trying to write some note explaining the details of our domestic schedule, I decided to take a chance that they really do open for business at 8:30am and that I could still catch the last train in a last-minute dash to the station.
As it turns out the train was 15 minutes late and I had plenty of time – my various anxieties collected and dispensed in vain.
Without any anxiety ice has begun to form atop Farm Pond in thin colliding sheets stretching shore to shore. The pond must be quite shallow to freeze so soon since deepwater lakes like Lake Cochituate – with lots of water to store summertime heat – rarely show a rind of ice in November.
With this thought still in mind, I overhear an unfamiliar conductor explaining to an unfamiliar passenger how the train was delayed by railroad construction. That may be the case, but it also seems to be the standard excuse whenever the reason is unknown or they’d rather not say – like those cold winter mornings when embarrassed engineers forget to start their engines early enough. Judging from railroad crossing whistles heard all morning, every train from 7:07am until this one was on time, and unless I wish to indulge in conspiracy theories I’ll just accept the railroad construction story as told.
At Wellesley Hills Station we chatter to a lurching stop beside the usual encrusted granite with a spatter of green leaves still clinging to thin brush among the crags. Perhaps these south-facing rocks hold enough heat to extend the growing season a bit.
Beyond the station and past Route 9 the motif of winter rules once more, lingering upon the open woodland floor. The snow from a recent ocean storm barely covers the ground and yet it changes the whole scene. I suppose in visible light there isn’t anything whiter or more naturally reflective than snow – so whether an inch or a foot – any snowfall will brighten a gloomy day like sunlight from an invisible second star.
Into our express run I still have my north side three-seater all to myself. Such is normal for the last train unless some previous train has fallen out of service – packing us instead like cattle cars – one train with two loads.
Through West Newton running between the train and triple-decker homes a secondary road streams past my window at eye-level. With leaves mostly gone I gaze more deeply into side streets filled with expensive real estate set farther from the tracks.
Abruptly the seen changes. We’ve crisscrossed under the Mass Pike replacing the two-lane road with six lanes of teeming highway. Running below the railroad grade the Pike has been carved into the greater hillside, lying between us and a steeper portion sloping out of sight down into the meandering Charles River Valley.
A mile or two later the Pike leaves my view as well – replaced with a smattering of freight traffic moored at the Allston yards. Above the yard a giant lumbering airliner dots a blue and cloudless sky. If it were commonplace to see such airplanes in that spot I would not have noticed, but departing from Logan this one is climbing out over Cambridge instead of through the usual waypoints above East Boston and Revere and a little less often over South Boston when the wind is blowing into the city from the south.
