Stranger on a train

Mail car

    The 8:15 AM Amtrak train to Newark was crowded.  I searched three cars for a seat, and finally sat down next to a harmless-looking young woman with totes and duffel bags at her feet.  Trains have lots of legroom, but I am used to planes.  I read my New Yorker for a while, all the time airplane-seat vigilant that she did not spill over into my space.  At some point we started to talk, probably beginning with "Where are you headed?"
   She was going to Trenton to visit a college roommate.  Just returned last week from a year in Norway, where she taught elementary school.  She taught for a year in Minneapolis before that.  Have I heard of Teach For America?
    How did she get to Norway?  Well, it was a Fulbright. I asked her lots of questions about Norway.  She told me that one way they deal with the dark winters is to dim the lights, light lots  of votive candles, and knit.    She was struck with her Norwegian friends' conviction that Americans live with a constant undercurrent of panic.
     And what will she do next year?   Go to graduate school in Boston.  Where in Boston? Harvard.  Her face was bright. She's interested in educational policy.  How can schools of education  track their graduates after 5 or 10 years to find out what in works and what doesn't in teacher training?  The schools could then modify their programs.  It doesn't happen much now, she said.   Then she asked me, "Who was your favorite teacher, and why?" She was genuinely curious, interested in my experience and in me.

     We talked  through Baltimore, Aberdeen, Wilmington, and Philadelphia.  She told me a story that both puzzled and gratified her.  A former boyfriend, whom she had not seen in 5 years, called her to apologize for "being asleep, not being aware"  while they were together.  She didn't remember him that way, but was surprised and pleased that he sought her out to tell her what he had discovered.    "I hope I don't fall asleep anytime in my life,"  she said.  "That seems like an important thing."
     "Oh, you won't"  I insisted with all the assurance of my years. "When you are old and limited, it's the crucial thing, not to fall asleep, but you won't.  You've got it."
    We said good-bye.  I didn't ask her name,  just waved to her as she lugged her  bags off the train in Trenton.