“What would you say about the odd dynamic when someone cries on the subway? For the one crying, it can be very therapeutic, to cry alone yet surrounded by people. But what do you do when you see someone crying? Does it make you feel better about yourself (at least it’s not so bad that I’M crying on the subway)? Do you want to help but fear doing so because it would be intrusive? What is the psychology of the one watching the one who is crying?”
| elmtree, comment section, from Jared Keller’s Riding the Subway as Therapy |
Recently, I burst into tears on the bus. It was the one year anniversary of Anthony Shadid’s passing in Damascus, Syria. This ebullient, eloquent American-Lebanese journalist succumbed to an asthma attack and his senseless death robbed us of the voice of his generation.
I felt a profound loss.
In my twenties, subways were a refuge for my tears; quiet, unobtrusive, detrimental tears. After losing L., mere days after my twentieth birthday, my subway jaunts were somewhat of a salvation – the anonymity that urban transit provided was liberating, the catalyst to my unwanted tears: they would suffuse and break free.
The only place where I could just be.
Nowadays, I seem to have reclaimed my joy for public transit, though Montreal’s metro system brings out many a frustration and disgust, I am quite euphoric about the train systems of other urban regions I grok so.
As a transit geek, this is an area that captivates me. It needs further exploring – the intoxication that the metropolis has for me. Simmel, my friend, to you I always return.
Self-deprecating 
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