the ghost of spinsterhood yet to come

On Easter Sunday I took an early train from Chicago to the Milwaukee airport so I could spend the day with my family. Sunday mornings are an interesting phenomenon in the Loop, as the streets are quite empty of traffic of all kinds. When the sun is out, the bare openness of the streets bisecting dense forests of concrete, brick, and metal is surprisingly lovely. The sun was out, the air was crisp, and though I had to balance a delicate custard pie, it was a pleasure to be out.

On Easter morning, the streets and the train station were even more deserted than usual. There were few passengers for the morning train. One passenger did catch my eye. She was not young, probably somewhere between late fifties or mid-sixties. I liked how she looked: Her shoes appeared to balance comfort with some style. Her pants had a just-wide-enough leg and a clean line, and they were just swing-y enough without being clingy, fluid, or drape-y. Her hair was a blond-leaning gray and was cropped close in a pixie that was entirely age-appropriate and attractive. She may have worn glasses, but I don't remember that well.

In the morning, at the station, I noticed her and made (as you can see above) little mental notes to myself to file away for my own middle age. While sitting in the waiting area, she looked perfectly pleasant: not timid, nor sour, nor too-bright, nor nervous, nor narrow... She seemed to me to be rather well put together.

She was there again on the Chicago-bound platform at the Milwaukee airport that evening and I had another chance to observe her. I imagined that, like me, she spent the day with some family for the Easter holiday. Perhaps she has a job that prevented her from spending Sunday night away from Chicago. In any event, like me, she made her trip a day-long affair and no more. Like me, she traveled alone.

I can't, of course, claim great insight into a woman's life on the strength of a haircut, a pair of pants, and a commuter train timetable. Perhaps she is happily partnered and spent the day with a dear friend. Perhaps she is indeed single but unhappily so, and the mildness I believed I saw is the result of years of careful hiding. Still I wondered whether that would be me in twenty or thirty years, taking the train alone early on a Sunday morning for a few hours' participation in family life before returning home, alone, to habitual solitude.