Subways, Buses and Bicycles

 

Back in my college days, I worked for three months at a school in Manhattan. The first six weeks I lived with a girlfriend at her parents’ house in Brooklyn and took the subway. The last six weeks I was at home in New Jersey with my parents and took the bus into Port Authority. In both cases, I remember feeling how grim the commutes were, everything grey and dirty and all the fellow commuters looking so depressed and downtrodden. I hoped that this would not be my fate in whatever future career unfolded. 

 

And happily, it wasn’t! San Francisco was sunnier and with fresher air and the 20-minute drive to and from work went alongside a lot of green-space and was rarely clogged with traffic. (And between our family and carpooling with others, our carbon footprint was relatively small.)

 

Yet here I am back in Toronto riding the subway every day the next few weeks. Back in Tokyo with granddaughter Zadie, we also rode it every day. In both cases and others (guest teaching in Hong Kong or London or other urban areas), I’ve found myself somewhat enjoying the commute. Just something about being a part of the moving throng that keeps the human world afloat day in and day out. Of course, everyone is phone-huddled instead of people-watching and reading books with interesting covers and that’s too bad, but still there’s something slightly electric about being swept along in the current. And very satisfying to figure out the routes. 

Of course, none of this compares to one of the most memorable six-weeks of my life when I first taught the Special Course at the Orff Institut in Salzburg. I lived in Anif, an outlying village and commuted every day on bicycle. Through the village greeting the lions as I rode past the zoom, through Hellbrun Park with the Sound of Music gazebo and a view of the distant mountains, down tree-lined Hellbrun Allee where Julie Andrews skipped so happily, to arrive 20 minutes later at this historic Orff center to do precisely the work I was born for with people from some 10 different countries eager to learn. All of this in the rain, in the snow, on sunny warm days, on blustery cold days. Following the Swedish advice of no bad weather, just bad clothes, I had boots and rain-pants and gloves and wool hats as well as lighter wear and it all was part of the adventure. Sometimes I walked the 40-minute trek, occasionally took the 10-minute bus ride— but mostly it was every day on my one-gear solid bike with its big basket and the freedom to keep riding after the days classes— to the Old Town or the surrounding fields or the burbling stream. Every day for six weeks.

 

Would I prefer that to the subway commute? Of course! But both feel like part of the grand adventure of coming to and fro to the place where the work must get done. And no need to say the obvious— despite having to awaken at 3:30 am San Francisco time this morning, I had unusually long classes—one hour each—with the 2^nd graders, 3^rd graders and kindergarten kids at the school where I’ll be guest-teaching for three weeks and every minute a delight! Still, hoping for an early bedtime tonight! Maybe I’ll dream of subways, buses and bicycles.