Monday, December 06, 2010

U5

There’s a woman who often rides my train, a young woman of about 25, who must get on a couple stops before me since she’s always comfortably ensconced in a seat by the time the train is at my stop. She’s an unremarkable person, plain and a bit plump. Mousy brown, like most of us; her hair hangs thinly to the length of her chin. Not to insult her – for all I know she’s the second queen of Persia, or the president of the Frankfurt chapter of Mensa. It could be, but for the most part she’s someone you wouldn’t look at twice, or I wouldn’t, except she is often reading a book. It’s usually a beat-up book with two wind-blown figures on the cover, a man and woman, clearly what in America would be a ‘Harlequin Romance.’ But no matter. What I notice is how her expression changes when she’s reading. Her eyebrows rise and arch expectantly. Or her jaw slackens and her dull eyes start to gleam. Her lips inevitably flicker into a smile that she seems to forget is there, since she continues to smile it stupidly for long stretches of our trip. Frankly, as unkind as it sounds, she looks so idiotic at these times that I’m embarrassed for her. Frankly, I have to admit that at many points in my own recent reading of Jane Eyre that I fear I have become this person, and have resolved to restrict further reading to my room.

8 comments:

Kathleen said...

I was thinking of you as I read Figure Studies, more poems by Claudia Emerson, these past two days...as one of the epigraphs is from Jane Eyre. It ends, "[I]t suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest."

Sandy Longhorn said...

On a plane trip this past summer, I watched a woman, by glancing up off and on from my own book, reading a romance. At one point, I saw her blush and abruptly put her bookmark in the book and close it firmly. I had to wonder if she was somehow embarrassed by reading the sex scenes in a plane full of strangers. :)

SarahJane said...

footage of expressive people reading would make a good youtube video.

Jasmine said...

Hehe, yes...
I find it difficult to contain my own smiles though, and not just when I'm reading but when I'm driving alone and hatching little plots in my head, in a lift full of strangers when something fun strikes me, well in a lot of queer places.
I hope there are a lot of people like you around who are embarassed for me. :)
Jane Eyre is doing it to you?
:)

Jasmine said...

Oh and why "U5"?
you are completely eligible to letting it hang as vague in the air too, of course.

SarahJane said...

jane eyre, yes! best book of 2010.
The U5 is my subway line - U for underground.

Rallentanda said...

I'm never reading in public again.

Kartik Menon said...

Its a sad thing that you are embarassed by her. I would be envious of someone else being able to lose themselves in a "book" so easily, even though its not great literature, whilst you sit and judge them :)

-
KM

Related Posts with Thumbnails