I think best in transit.

There’s something satisfying about being at the whim of a train. Something pleasant about resting my head against the slightly clouded glass window, peering out at the horizon as it oscillates between city skyscrapers and rolling grass fields, feeling as if I’m somewhere between inside and outside. Something comforting and poignant about being bound by space for just a few fleeting moments, with a group of strangers who will probably only encounter each other once.

I like to imagine my life as a train ride, each distinct era marked by a stop.   

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My first stop was Ditmars Boulevard Station in Astoria, Queens—right at the heart of New York’s “Little Greece.” Though the apartment was barely big enough to hold our young family, it felt large to me. During chaotic nightly dinners, I refused vegetables, my sister threw tantrums from her high chair, and my parents tried to hold it together despite the exhaustion of two kids under six and another on the way. Our time in Astoria had the same energy as the local station during commuter hours: cramped, noisy, and full of hope all at once. It was the place where our journey began—where my parents first met and where they departed from each morning towards the Big Apple to try and realize their vision of the American Dream.  

The next stop was South Norwalk Station in Connecticut. We upsized the house and kitchen table so it was large enough for the addition of my youngest sister, and learned to get used to the slower, more deliberate pace of the area. Life fell into a quieter rhythm. The sounds of sirens and car horns were replaced by crickets and howling coyotes living in our backyard, and tantrums at the dinner table morphed into nightly multiplication flash card sessions that my mother insisted on. Like the SONO station, Connecticut felt steady, manageable, and organized. It was so tight-knit that I seemed to know everyone in my small Fairfield County town. And I was okay with that.

This past summer, I stopped at Athens Railway Station right by my grandparents’ home in Greece. Here, all bets were off. I was the “American Girl” in town. No one cared about the prestige of my university, my sense of fashion, or my five-year plan. The deafening sounds of cicadas and waves from the nearby sea drowned out thoughts that had followed me for years. Instead of wondering if I was behind, or stressing about whether my extracurricular schedule was adequate, I pondered my family’s roots, imagining what my life would have been like had they stayed there, and spent my mornings on the sand playing backgammon with my grandpa as I basked in my brief hiatus from real life. It felt wild and free, almost like a fever dream, as if the train had drifted into a new dimension. Greece wasn’t a stop on the way to anywhere else, but a lapse in time where I could simply breathe.

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My latest stop was at the one and only Providence Station. Predictable settings, familiar faces, and people who knew my name were all a thing of the past. I recall looking up as I stood in the center of the station for the first time, eyes wide and full of uncertainty. There, I found a circular window of light directly above me. Looking out, I saw the sky and wondered how many people before me—Brown students, tourists, or Providence residents—had done the same. It was the first time I’d inhabited a space where I had no roots. No solid ground to trace my story back to. I was alone, without my parents to hold my hand and walk me through every step, without the familiar culture I’d always taken comfort in. Yet, for the first time, I found myself in a place I knew had the potential to feel like my city. 

Within a week of settling in, I had created a routine for myself in Providence. Strangers from orientation became acquaintances I explored campus with and now meet for dinner nearly every day. Our “spot” at the Ratty—right next to the pasta station—is a revolving door of different friends each night, all of us stopping on our way to and from various club meetings, classes, and sports practices.

As I write this, I am in transit yet again. It’s late at night, and I am coming back from the Harvard-Brown football game, doing what I always do when I find myself on trains: reflecting. I am sitting directly across from three strangers I don't know if I will speak to yet. I wonder what their story is and how, like me, they happened to find themselves on the 10 p.m. train from Back Bay to Providence Station on a Saturday night. I wonder if they are traveling together, or if they simply happened to sit next to each other. I wonder who or what they are going home to, or if they are even going home at all. I wonder if they, too, are wondering about me. 

Maybe they see my life’s “stops” written all over me. Maybe they notice the evil-eye necklace from my month in Greece that I now wear around my neck as evidence of my heritage and my family’s superstitions. Maybe they see my high school’s logo on the back of my phone case (I keep delaying replacing it since it reminds me of home). Maybe if they listen to my voice, they will notice that the way I say certain words; ‘bowl,’ for instance, has a barely detectable tinge of a New York accent—a relic of my Astoria upbringing. 

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As Family Weekend approaches, and many of us prepare for the thrill of traveling and reuniting, we should remember that a place is never really left behind. We hold onto bits and pieces picked up along the way at every stop we’ve gotten off at. 

While we all happen to find ourselves here together, we should remember that we are always, in one way or another, traveling. Always in motion. And that makes the times we do happen to find ourselves at the same stop all the more special. For now, there is nothing we can do but sit back as if in a train car, taking pleasure in the ever-shifting scenery before us, knowing that the most exciting stops lie ahead.