Those who've known me for years (and I suspect a solid majority of you reading this have) should recognize what a tremendous personal stride that represents. For years, even as far back as middle school, I was a young man seldom to bed before 2 AM and never fully coherent until at least 10 the next morning. An 8 AM start to the school day didn't change that, anymore than morning classes at EIU, 7 AM campaign strategy conference calls or the no-nonsense 8:30 clock-in for the Illinois State Government did. Through night shifts, morning shifts, day shifts and the timeless, formless abyss that is extended unemployment, the limestone bedrock of my daily life was that mornings and I just didn't jive.
Then came the Blue Line.
For those of you who don't know, the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line is one of the city's L trains. The route is 27 miles long, snaking from Forest Park out to O'Hare International. She's one of only two rapid transit trains in Chicago that runs 24 hours a day, and one of only six in the entire nation. 200,000 people ride her rails daily, and believe me when I say that around 8 in the morning, you can feel every one of them. She goes all the way back to 1895, which as Chicago staples go makes her older than the Bears, the Cubs and the rule of the Democratic Party.
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| It's the blue one, for those who struggle with context clues |
Our early relationship was not a harmonious one. Our first affair was an embarrassingly short stint last year, during which I held two jobs that required I take her; one on Chicago Avenue and another in the heart of the Loop itself. In the span of three weeks, I relieved myself of one of those positions, and was forcibly relieved of another, but I rode the Blue Line every day all the same. I started only a few stops from O'Hare, riding her in around 8 AM, and I hated every second of it.
To start, there were too many people. Especially between the hours of 7 and 9 AM, commuters packed in tight enough to make sardines uneasy. They formed a physical wall of humanity, pressing tighter and tighter into one another as the train drew closer to the loop. As a lifelong country boy accustomed to such luxuries as personal space, a free range of movement and oxygen, each ride was almost suffocating.
I was also entirely too polite for it. Making reasonable time in rush hour requires pushing, squeezing, and a dogged insistence that despite the fact that you are passenger 128 on a car meant for 125, you will have a place inside when the doors close. Unfamiliar with the route, I kept my eyes glued on the map like a hawk, too afraid to put in headphones to listen to anything in fear that I'd miss the announcers state which stops were pulling into. It was sweaty in the heat of all those people, and held a white knuckle death grip on the iron poles like they were my last friends in this world. My feet were never planted right, which left me pinballing off other commuters and other commuters quickly learning to dislike me for it. I huddled near the doors because I was too shy to push my way from the middle of the car to exits, but that forced me to step on and off for the people leaving and entering, often too shy to push my way back on.
Those early train rides, like everything else that July and August stretch, were completely miserable.
So as 2016 drew to a close and I landed myself a job right back on Chicago Avenue again, I knew I was going to have to live in the same suburb and knew I'd have to face that dreaded Blue Line. And just as I was determined to make this job work, I was equally resolved to make my Blue Line experience a more enjoyable one. The easy fix was just leaving earlier in the morning, when the CTA is sparely populated and the trip leisurely. Once I got more comfortable, the route was easy to figure out as well. And in not time at all, the daily commute into downtown became just as mindless and routine as anything is for those who decide that confronting and adapting to a thing is easier than being intimidated by it.
And so it is that every morning I woke up early; 5 on my more ambitious mornings and as late as 7 if I'm feeling lazy. I get a on bus and ride that for 30 minutes down to the Blue Line, I ride the Blue Line to Chicago and I walk the remaining 15-20 minutes to work. Then in the evening, I do it all over in reverse. I get to work just before the sun rises, and I get out of it an hour after the sun has set.
Just in terms of time investment, it's a daunting commute, and avoiding that obnoxious crowd has led me to adopt that early bird's lifestyle that so reasonably seemed antithetical to my very nature. I can't read anything on the train, nor can I play games or really even look at my phone. To try would just invite motion sickness; that old buagaboo that's always found my company on trains, plains and automobiles.
Yet in spite of all that, over the last 10 weeks, I've found myself falling in love with the Blue Line. Unable to do anything there but listen, I've become invested in audio. I've doubled down on my Spotify account and invested so much in Audible that I'm practically a shareholder. The 12.5 hours a week I spend shooting between Niles and Chicago have become my escape, and the Blue Line a train to other worlds. In the last two months, it's taken me to Vietnam and San Francisco. It's served as a time machine taking me to turn-of-the-century Boston, World War II and the White House of Lyndon Johnson. I've ridden her through Endworld, Middle Earth and Aurdwynn. And I've used the time as a way to catch up on all the albums I've been intending to listen to for the last two years.
What is considered a chore for most Americans has become one of my favorite parts of my day. It's making me a more learned, better read person, and reviving a passion for music that had begun to grow somewhat stale in recent years. And as I spend that goodly portion of my day downing book after book and album after album, I've felt a need to share all of that such that I haven't felt in some time.
So I'm launching this blog today. I call it the Blue Line Bookworm because most of my commute is spent listening to books, but I won't strictly limit myself to that topic. It won't be completely unfocused either. Rather, I want to stick to the 3 Ss: Stories, songs and sports (as once March Madness, the NBA playoffs and eventually baseball season and the NFL roll around, sports radio will re-enter my diet again too). I'll share reviews of the books I read and albums I listen to, as well as reflections on those I love dearly and chose to revisit. I'll talk about upcoming sports events and my thoughts on them, including informed musings about football and clueless ones about baseball. On music, I'll write about themed playslists (what does an audiophile love more than a list?) and genre dissections, and on literature, genre breakdowns and I'll recommend reads. And as I get more and more comfortable, you'll get short stories from me that I dream up along the way. I hope you enjoy it as much as I've been enjoying the things that inspire it.
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