Happiness is in a metro full of strangers

One of the clearest moments of pure happiness I recall is almost two years ago in a metro heading to Plaza de Catalunya, Barcelona. A sunny January day at the very beginning of a two year adventure that might just last another two. I don’t remember why I was in the metro this specific time, but I remember it felt so good to be there among strangers with my – back then – brand new iPod and for sure a StarBucks coffee in my stomach.

It took me years to figure out happiness is not a goal. Happiness is in things that happen. Happiness is in a metro full of strangers.

Here, in Madrid, I remember this specific ride almost every other day. Happiness, it turns out, is in the Madrilenian metro as well. I’m older now, and one might say wiser. Still I find it there, amongst strangers listening to my old beaten-up iPod.

Every morning around eight thirty I squeeze myself into the green line at Oporto and read my free newspaper standing between the other commuters. Once I read that in rush-hour in Bombai there are about 16 people on every square meter of train. Madrid does a nice eight. Complete strangers are closer to me than I usually am with a girl during sex. We endure.

By the time we reach Puerto de Toledo I’m usually through the paper and either fold it away or hand it over to the person right on top of me. For what remains of the 25 minutes ride I look at my fellow travellers. What I find in them is happiness. Some faces become familiar after a month and we look at each other without emotion, but saying everything. It’s impossible to meet these people, even though they might just be two meters away. They’re out of reach.

A girl tried, last Monday. It took her till Alonso Martinez to cross three of the four meters between us. She tried to talk to me, but then I had to get out and she had no other choice left than to wave and wait for the next day. In these things I find happiness.

On the way back the metro is much more quiet. It gives me time to think, to write. It’s a little moment of reflection, with my music and the comfortable need for a smoke. In the afternoon the metro is a place to be myself, anonymous. In that, also, I find happiness.