Public transport provides a unique and mostly missed opportunity to engage in meditative contemplation and compile strange internal narratives. Obviously some trips are more interesting than others, and trips on dark rainy nights are the most interesting of all.
This trip starts with one of those oddly insignificant and yet poignant moments, a goodbye to a pre-friend. When I say a pre-friend, I mean someone who you meet during a social activity or obligation where you don’t really know anyone else, someone who after said activity you are unlikely to ever see again. During this brief time you get just enough time to get past some of the initial formalities of talking to someone, the who are you’s, what do you do’s etc. and strike up somewhat of a pre-friendship, have a few laughs before going your separate ways shortly after. Its more than a quick chat to a stranger, but its not enough to register as anything more significant. Now goodbyes are always anticlimactic, but these are particularly so. You exchange a few pleasantries and have one of those awkward well, this is it, see you around… kind of moments, and its all over.
Its an interesting microcosm of a real friendship, but the goodbye has quite a different feeling. The emotions of a real goodbye are much stronger and seem to weigh the experience down. The feeling of these goodbyes leaves one feeling surrounded by a vague halo of positivity, that unmistakable feeling that the world is a pretty good place.
Then you don your headphones and hit the play button, isolating yourself from the sounds of the real world, isolating that feeling - that moment in time for a little while longer. You ride slowly through the neon rain washed streets and let your thoughts wander with the mood of your music, music which you’ve heard before but now seems to sound a little different. Like all things, the feeling will eventually fade away, but its imprint will remain in the music, and in future, every time you listen to it you’ll always be taken back to that unique place and time.