it's a bird, it's a train, it's.... wait, that's not how it goes!

My life currently exists between two sets of train tracks. To the immediate - and I mean immediate - east of my living quarters (the space-age concrete box) are the tracks for the L, and to the immediate - again, the REALLY immediate - west of the music building are the tracks for the Metra. 

I suppose I'll never have to wonder if I'm living on the wrong side of the tracks. (Insert rim shot here.)

I'm sitting in my room as I type this, and although my room is on the opposite side of the building from the L, I can hear it every single time it passes, starting with that low rumble in the distance, growing to a loud metallic "whoosh" as it passes, and ending with stillness, accompanied by the familiar "ding dong" as the doors close and the train rumbles off again. I love the sound of the L. I love the deafening roar when I happen to walk under the tracks as it passes. I love the way the student center is filled with a whisper of thunder each time a train goes through the tube overhead. Maybe it's just my inner city girl wanting to come out, but something about that sound makes this place feel more like home. 

I end each day where I start it - in class. As the afternoon wears on, and my attention span wears thin, I look out the windows each time I hear the familiar sound of the passing Metra.  I think of my Uncle Gerry and remember the stories about how he would sleep on the train and would have to be woken up when it got to his stop in the Prudential Building. The trains pass by more frequently as class nears its end, bearing their loads of commuters home after a day's work. I picture myself on the train with them, feeling that familiar lightness of reaching the end of another working day. But then the train is gone, and I snap back to reality. 

Speaking of which... I wonder how many L trains have passed in the time it took me to write this? Probably far too many... I'd better grab some food and get cracking on the homework!