A competition gown, a red zipper, and what experience can make us miss.
The train halted and the attendant came to me confirming that I was getting off in West Palm and that they were leaving momentarily for Orlando.
Most of the trains on the Brightline begin in Miami and end in West Palm, where the left-behind water bottles and snack bags are cleared out and the train is prepared for its return trip south. We ‘regulars’ have gotten used to paying a bit of lip service to the announcer’s urgency in his message to hurry up and get off the train because it is only stopping for two minutes. Every third train or so goes on to Orlando, but I rarely seem to catch those longer routed trains. A downpour was going on when the train pulled in, making me particularly reluctant to rush out into it, and so, when the announcement came that we were arriving at West Palm, I didn’t rush to gather my things. He didn’t really mean a couple of minutes.
Only this time he did. I had assumed wrong, and this really was a two-minute stop.
The entire train ride I had been lost in my book writing and showing excellent concentration, if I do say so myself. I was hyper-focused on my Chapter 1 rewrite, because, as every writer knows, Chapter 1 is the toughest chapter of them all and demands that every cell of your being be lasered in. But at this moment, 100% attention was not a positive.
I scooped up and jammed charger, computer, and phone into my dance bag and raced to the end of the car with the luggage rack, where my roller bag holding a competition gown was.
My roller bag is a black hard-case style. I keep meaning to get a brightly colored ribbon or a luggage tag to distinguish it as mine, but right now it looked like any other black bag. I scanned the bags, grabbed the black shiny roller, double-checked there wasn’t another roller that looked like mine, and headed to the train door as the announcement came on that they were leaving the station. As I was heading out the door my mind nudged me. The bag wasn’t quite the right shape. And there was a red zipper. Red?
My brain split in two. Half of it argued to just get off the train and it would all work out. The other half said no way are you getting off this train until you know that’s your bag.
The second half was already recalling a not-so-great night ten years ago.
I was returning from a competition in Washington, DC, tired and hungry, so when we pulled into the Stamford station, food and bed were front and center in my mind. I grabbed my coat and exited the train. But as it turned out, the coat I grabbed was not my coat. Three hours later, with many apologies to the Amtrak staff and the rightful coat owner, the error caused by my haste was corrected.
History was not going to repeat itself. My mother always told us to learn from our mistakes, and this was a perfect case in point.
I hollered to the train staff, asking them to hold the train until I was sure that I had the right black bag.
A fellow passenger heard the words “black bag” and wasted no time dashing to the baggage rack to check on his own and let us all know that indeed his bag was gone.I kept one foot in the doorway so it couldn’t close. At the same moment, I spotted the conductor reaching up to the overhead above my seat and pulling down a bag. Mine. At some point he must have moved it, and I was too focused on Chapter 1 to notice. I moved more of my body into the doorway, firmly blocking it while we got sorted out.
Bags were switched. I gave apologies all around, to the passenger whose bag I had almost swiped and to the train staff. A few passengers were eyeing me as though I had just lost my head, which I think was due to my door-jamming move.
What the train ride taught me
The whole situation began with an ill-placed assumption. I knew the train route and how much time I had to write. I knew where my bag was. I knew what the announcer said as we pulled into West Palm. Experience makes us efficient and hopefully smarter. It can also make us a tad too comfortable, because knowing how things usually go can take the place of noticing how they are actually going.
There is another lesson here. I had spent that ride deeply focused, and my writing showed it. However, the concentration that helped me successfully fix Chapter 1 put blinders on me. Someone moved my bag to within two feet of me and I was oblivious. Our gifts also carry a shadow. Focus is a gift. So is paying attention.
Paying attention is not an inborn trait or part of your disposition. It takes practice to be someone who is present in the moment, and not just practice, but putting it into action in real life.
And then there was my problem-solving skill—the foot in the door. I’ll admit it was not a selfless act, and the guilt of that went through my mind too. I’m left wondering, is asking the world to wait for a moment selfish? Or is it just wise?
When in doubt, stick your foot in the door. Just be confident it won’t close on it.
Has experience ever made you a little too comfortable? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.