Tube Talk

and privilege and incremental tipping points of change

Immersion and Privilege

India and Bhutan happened a month ago, hard to believe. It was so immersive, like a psychedelic drug—there’s a reason they called it ‘tripping’. Reality, as in real life, is left behind, while at the same time, the mind and the world and the senses are expanded in ways that I previously haven’t experienced. Minus the drug hangover. The effect brought much joy, a tempered joy, because as I’m fond of saying: to not acknowledge the immense privilege of such an experience in the first place would be a hubris of the worst kind. Not recognizing one’s luck and privilege in general is pure hubris, but certain activities—like exotic travel, takes it up a notch.

I’m fully steeped in my return to normal London life, a bit changed, a bit more mindful. I brought some things back I learned about each country and culture, especially some spiritual aspects, which are serving me well. With the consistency of five weeks under my belt, the small devotion I pay each day to a very minimal series of yoga movements and meditation are having an effect. It’s like saving pocket change—so little effort, but the smallest bits of discipline can become substantial. Others arrive at this foregone conclusion far sooner than I did, but in all fairness to myself, I’ve excelled in other areas. Regardless of the timing, I’m happy, and frankly, there’s been no better time to learn the art of accepting the continual flux of all things and aligning the direction of thought patterns to the present.

The Tube

When I came to the UK as a kid and adolescent my mom and I would split our stay between my aunt’s—her sister—in West Hampstead, and my grandmother’s house in Stanmore. That’s my earliest memory of the tube. Back then, the route was still part of the Bakerloo Line. When I visited as a young teenager, the tube gave me my first sense of real independence—I could actually go places, safely, alone.

In 1976, when I came here hoping to get in a band, I answered an ad in the Melody Maker for a band looking for a guitarist. They were called Painted Lady, but would soon change their name to Girlschool. The band was based in South London; for our first meeting, I took the tube to Waterloo station where Kim and Enid would be waiting for me.

“You can’t miss me, I’ll be the girl holding a Stratocaster in a trash bag,” I said.

My flight case, the only case I’d brought, was made of metal and weighed about 100lbs. Dragging my guitar in that case from Texas to London at age 17 is eternally burned into my most miserable but laughable experiences memory bank. Hence, the trash bag guitar holder.

All this to say, the tube is a London institution, embedded and practically synonymous with London culture. To me, it is the most easily navigated of all the underground rails I’ve used. It’s the world’s oldest underground system, dating from 1863. Even the map is an iconic design.

retro tube map

As you’ve learned, my own tube history goes back decades. To this day, I still tend to think of London in terms of tube station stops, laid out in a row, with a specific order. I’m continually surprised, as I become more overground familiar, that there is overlap and adjacency between places I thought were miles, or several stops and line changes apart. For instance, Paddington, very close to where I live, is easily walk-able to Hyde Park, but looking on the tube map it seems nowhere near.

Since moving to the UK, and in the past year, London, I no longer have a car. The tube is a huge part of my life. I take the bus too—both tube and bus are free for me with my Freedom Pass—ubers and taxis on occasion, and I walk miles, but I’d say the tube is my mainstay. And even though I’m more than used to this common, everyday thing, it’s still a strange part of big city human experience.

There’s a slight bit of “elevator” syndrome—the awkwardness that ensues when you put a given number of strangers in a small box of a space. Like in an elevator, most people on the tube are withdrawn and collected into their bodies, avoiding even the most minor of interactions. An approximate majority stare at their phones. This always mystifies me a bit, because I rarely get any service, and I’m on a popular cell phone provider, not some budget off brand. How do they have service? It is unthinkable to ask people on the tube who their cell phone provider is.

A few will have their eyes closed, fewer still will have a book. I sometimes wish I was one of those, a tube book reader, but I know I wouldn’t be able to absorb anything and would just be carrying a book in my purse and looking at the page as if it were blank. There are ads lining the top of the car, and an occasional poem, but mostly what I do is surreptitiously observe my fellow species.

Today I took fast, long strides just in time for a final neat jump through the doors of an Elizabeth Line train departing from Liverpool Street. This always feels like a sparkle of good luck omen, when I make a perfect connection, and I’ll take it as a sign I’ve been here too long if it ever stops giving me a tiny thrill zap. I sat, tucking the bulky edge of my puffer coat under my legs and scrunching my large bag into my lap so as not to encroach past my square of seat.

It’s important to maintain a very blank face, if possible, make it look so blank that if someone does catch my eye, they can’t even tell if they have registered into my awareness. According to Audrey, my face reveals exactly what I am thinking pretty much 24/7, so this takes a lot of effort on my part.

There’s always foot tapping and knee jiggling; up and down rapid bounces. There’s cup spinning and nail biting. If someone were people-watching me, they’d probably see me picking stray cat hairs off my clothing. Watching the incessant slight movements of people always makes me ponder the idea that we all seem very uncomfortable being humans. We’re not near as good at being humans as chickens are at being chickens, or monkeys are at being monkeys, or…you get the idea.

Man Hands

But on this day, something else got my attention. The gentleman sitting next to me was reading his newspaper. His hands were beautiful— the most perfect man hands. I scoped out the other man hands in the train car just to make sure that they were special. For a moment, I became very interested in different man hand appearances. Across the aisle from me, I could see the reflection of the man next to me in the glass of the window. To my horror, he looked up from his newspaper, across the aisle, and our eyes met in the reflection. I was busted watching him, or his reflection anyway. My face wasn’t blank, it was…observant, interested.

I’ve had very little inclination in romance or meeting a partner or having a lover. But this man, with his perfect man hands, made me think, just a tiny bit, that it might be nice to have those hands on me. The reflection eye meet was a split second, but I was fairly sure that between that, and the tiny thought I’d had about his hands, that there was an energy emanating from me, I mean I was sitting right next to him. At Paddington, where most people get off, he gathered his paper and departed. I was pretty sure he’d not only felt my energy and, having no idea that it was just his stupid man hands that started it, probably thought I was a weirdo. Which is kind of the last thing you want to be, a weirdo on the tube.

Tube Begging

Another British phenomena of the tube is the rare experience of the tube beggar. It’s like they’ve all gone to a special training class, they all do it in a strikingly similar way, which is to say, extremely properly and politely. Whether man or woman, no matter how distressed and ramshackle, no matter how destitute—they are unfailingly well mannered and articulate. There are effusive regrets at imposing upon the travelers, explanations about how the money will be used, more apologies at how their dire circumstance may be unsettling to the rest of us.

Most travelers don’t even look up. But these train beggars are the only people on the tube who I will make eye contact with and not worry about having a blank face. I smile and say I’m sorry, I have no cash—(it’s true, who carries money these days?)—and I wish them good luck. It’s not the British accents, or their politeness, it’s a habit I acquired a long time ago, one I’ve used over the years with their American counterparts.

Like most of my good habits, it wasn’t innate, I got it from someone else, in this case a talk given by Baba Ram Dass that I attended many many years ago in Los Angeles. He said something like: when you look away or ignore another person’s suffering, you are closing your heart to compassion and therefore not being an instrument of love. My takeaway was that when I see a homeless or down and out street person, while I can’t relieve their misfortune, I can recognize their dignity as a human being with eye contact. Acknowledge the humanity with words, a nod, a smile. I think that’s better than money.

In those instances I don’t mind being the weirdo on the tube.

Thank you for being here, reading, opening, sharing, subscribing—however you can contribute to keeping me into doing this it’s a win and I’m grateful.