Morningtime

Breakfast. A buttered English muffin topped with fresh blueberries. Sitting alone at a long wooden table, the morning light filtering through the window. An early quiet made possible by still sleeping roommates. Soon there will be a warm wool coat with ruffles, leather gloves lined with cashmere, a fuzzy wool hat, and bags gathered to carry out into the world. A morning commute. I find a single seat away from the bother of flustered strangers. I tuck my second bag between my legs and hug my purse in my lap. Reading Holidays On Ice. A lark that brings an unexpected smile to my face and fades the many bodies that surround me.

How lucky am I to have such safety. Such comfort. A commute free from harm. I do not rise each morning wondering if my subway car will burst into a million tiny fragments of human ignorance. Anger in this first world is as petty as a forgotten mobile phone or the fact that this rotund gentleman stands a little too close to you on the bus. We know so little of true, raw pain. We don't see real anger, the kind of bites and scratches wounds so deep they take generations to heal. We don't know. We don't appreciate. And sometimes, I wonder, if our humanity is not the worse for it.