Subway Travels

I really want to start writing about people and drawing them.

I was sitting thinking this on the subway train this morning. It's so interesting watching the people around you travel in the same train. They all have their ways of avoiding eye contact from one another. Of course they ultimately try and distract themselves from the situation to connect back into their own world with their own familiarity.

There was this guy the other week. Looked like any other person you might have seen sitting on the subway. Middle aged, not scruffy more semi-smart and with the same avoidance of eye contact that everyone else has when travelling on the subway. There was a moment though as my eye scanned around the train that I caught him taking a half bottle of vodka out of his inner jacket pocket and take more than a small mouthful of this vodka neat.

I then went off on a tangent of thought whilst watching this unfold. I wondered if he had children or what his life story was. why did he feel the need to be drinking at midday during the week. I looked at the people to either side of him. both of which never noticed or more they didn't care to pay attention. What a crazy scene. I guess it is going back to the main point of this piece of writing, that we all try to distract ourselves from the engagement of a strangers contact in public space. Perhaps it is the venerability we feel whilst isolated from our familiarity. Perhaps it is ignorance.

So this is somewhere as to the why I want to start drawing and writing about people on the subway. They all have their own story to tell and I like thinking about what that might be. Their awkward engagement is also exciting. How someone sits as that drunk guy staggers through the door just moments prior to the beep. How that child's screams cause even the polite travellers face to contort.

Yeah I'm going to start keeping my notepad close to hand whilst on the train. It's a promise.