Creek Running North 大自然 Commute

April 28, 2008

Commute

The tracks come up out of the earth at Peralta, rise above the houses on brutal concrete pylons. Metal wheel scrapes metal rail as the train heads north. For a few blocks the tracks run above a linear park, an old right-of-way. The old Key Route took this path before the oil and auto companies bought up rail lines across the country, plowed them under.

At Solano the old right-of-way narrows. Houses press their backs up against the verge. From there north you can look down from your seat into the backyards of a thousand neighbors.

If I lived in one of these houses I would imagine my privacy uninvaded. The trains pass quickly, the passengers near-anonymous blurs in the windows preoccupied with newspapers. A whoosh of engine and a scrape of wheel on rail, and we are gone and the residents enjoy their yards in peace. I have been riding this line, though, for a quarter century, and a quarter century of daily four-second glimpses adds up. My time riding this train has been a reel of film, each pass by each yard a still frame.

I have watched the neighbors’ lives through the train’s lens. The new plastic toy tricycle left in different corners of the yard fades in the sun, is supplanted by a series of bicycles of increasing size. Trees are planted, grow, bear flowers and fruit, are pruned, succumb to blight. Roofs deteriorate in each winter’s storms. The signs go up, the house is sold, the paint goes on and fades and the grass grows unkempt and brown and possessions are removed in separate trucks and the signs go up. A second story is framed and roofed and finished and then I forget there was a time it wasn’t there.

An odd intimacy, this, a knowledge of people whose shadow on the earth I have not once seen. An odd affection, this, for the yellow-leaved lemon tree people, the pile of old lumber people, the purple stucco and peace sign people, the turquoise ‘67 Malibu under a tarp people. Their lives flit past as flickers on a screen, and though they are immediately and warmly familiar the train rounds a curve and slows for my station, and they pass out of my mind until the next commute.

Posted by: Chris Clarke

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From my train this morning, I saw a pheasant.

1
By: Megan
on April 28, 2008
at 01:45 PM

Excellent post. There’s so much to be learned from staying put for a few decades that one can’t get any other way.

2
By: Dave
on April 28, 2008
at 02:01 PM

the right of way narrows at solano going south, doesn’t it? key route going north from solano becomes wide, with a center area that is planted, for a mile or so.

for almost 2 decades, i’ve also gone back and forth on the same route. noticed the back yards, the trees, the paint jobs, construction here and there. i always stand up when the train gets near my station, because i want to see better—some of the people who lived in those houses, i have known.

3
By: kathy a
on April 28, 2008
at 08:47 PM

The Key Route right of way does widen north of there, kathy, but the BART right of way diverges just before Solano and it gets kinda narrow.

4
By: Chris Clarke
on April 28, 2008
at 09:03 PM

One thing that always surprises me is the number of commuters who are oblivious to anything happening outside the bus or train. As a bus commuter I enjoyed watching the seasons change in neighborhood gardens, the sun rising over the river, the flocks of Canada geese taking advantage of corporate landscaping, the occasional whitetail deer or flocks of wild turkeys wandering through midtown neighborhoods at dawn, but most of my fellow commuters seemed to view the time merely as an opportunity to nap for an additional twenty minutes. I can understand a little of that—but to never look out at the world?

5
By: Nan
on April 29, 2008
at 08:28 AM

Reminds me of what I miss not riding the train into Boston. Thanks. Much less interesting to commute by car but no other choice in the outer burbs except maybe a long bike ride via the back roads. I’ll have to rethink the latter with the current gas prices.

6
By: pablo
on April 29, 2008
at 10:26 AM

My Mom lives in one of those little Key Route houses, just south of Solano. She’s been there since it was, I think, either the Santa Fe or the Southern Pacific Line, and being a lover of trains she would go out on her back step and wave at the engineers every day. When the railroad shut down the line, the engineers went through the neighborhood and gave commemorative plaques to people like my Mom, who made their day a little nicer.

It’s not quite the same thing when Bart goes overhead, but I hope that as you’re whooshing by you’ll take a moment to wave howdy to my Mom. She has a lemon tree in her yard, you’ll know it when you see it.

7
By: zeladoniac
on April 30, 2008
at 06:05 AM