I love the times when I get to ride the Metro by myself.

I don’t think I need to emphasize the fact that I love my family and friends, and that I cherish the times I get to ride with them. 

Suddenly images from the time two of my friends-who-also-happen-to-be-mothers and I rode to the Building Museum and had an animated conversation about guys who are hot versus guys who are ugly-hot flood the mind. 

Clive Owen was the hottest ugly-hot guy by consensus, by the way.  Daniel Craig was also on the list.

But anyway, yes: I remember fun times and scary times and funny times and times when the wrong train was boarded by accident.  You get the idea.

But when you ride by yourself you get to see things.  Or well, *I* get to see things and see people and think about what it all means.  Like the way the green train I was riding on Saturday afternoon was absolutely delighted and awed by the way three beautiful boys –maybe in their late teens, maybe in their early twenties, but still with that lovely flush of utter youth– were carrying on a conversation in American Sign Language.

You could really hear only the sounds that escaped them– the sound of the train against the rails, the occasional thumping of the cars, a polite sniffle or a cough.  Otherwise, everyone in our car was making an effort to pay attention to their vivid signing.

I was looking at them intently– well, at their reflections on the car’s windows.  I couldn’t take my eyes off them: they were so dynamic and vibrant and filled with life in their silence that wasn’t. 

And there it is: that is why I like to ride on the Metro.  Because you can share moments like those with strangers; moments that are just as intimate as those you share with friends and family, but that much more meaningful because you’ve bonded with people you may never see again.

_________

And this bit o’ fluff brings me to an exercise I saw over at The Chronicles of Tewkesbury.  It consists of something that is not necessarily easy, but it’s one of those introspective things that are to me like flames to a moth.  Inspired by a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning, and originally devised by BookBabie, this meme asks you to write a SIX WORD memoir.

I know.  Six words?  Seriously.  No consideration for those among us who suffer from verborrhea, right?  But don’t let me stop your fun.  First off, here are the official instructions:

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play. (This last step is optional.)

Here are mine.  Yes, "are".  Because this is hard and I need validation through comments, so maybe you can tell me which one you like best, yes?

 Madame Meow™:

1. Thinking deeply, so you don’t hafta.
2. Cat thinks she’s a damn mouse.
3. Here, there, everywhere, all over again.
4. Living life as Plato’s Allegory, redux.
5. Bringing Annoyingly-Introspective Back Since 2005.
6. Housework won’t happen with prayers alone.

Alrighty.  Some are cheeky, some are fo’ realz– appropriately, there are six and hey!  Thirty-six is one of my favorite numbers. 

(did I mention this is rather hard?)

I am tagging some folks but please, by all means feel yourself tagged if you’d like to do it: I think it’s a good exercise in distilling your essence –whatever the hell that means.

_________

Ghosty, Florinda, Bohemian Girl, Anita, Alejna and OC Girl:  consider yourselves über-tagged.  You know that when the German comes trotting out, things are, like, totally serious.

(And you, out there and reading and counting the words, you too!)