The Train Station

I have a strange fixation with Potters Bar train station. That's a small suburb at the edge of London, for those of you that don't know. Every time I'm there, there's a small part of me that feels I could quite happily stay there forever. Essentially, it's a part of me wanting to be caught in a meaningless moment forever, being in a state of constant transit rather than ever being at a destination. Easy way out and all that...

There's no point in time easier to endure than the five or so minutes between entering the gates at a train station and boarding the train. You're devoid of any responsibility, it's all on the train driver. No power over the situation means no guilt whatsoever, any lateness is for the next few minutes, not your fault. And it's not as if there's much room for changing the world on a train journey. It's not really the time or place to be taking care of any other duties like work or important phone calls - desperate times excluded.  Just five minutes to sit down, and get your bearings, and wait. There are times when waiting is all I want to do. The fabulous irony is that the rest of the time I'm ridiculously impatient.

Potters Bar station is also a common factor in many of my best memories. Obviously it's a miniscule part of those memories but...when there's one building, or one person, or one jacket that has been unfailingly present throughout the best times of your life, you become attached to it. And PB Station is there in the background of every memory, like the children's TV show you don't realize you still love. But I think this common factor gets even more specific - I'm only really interested in one half of the station, the half facing London, I love facing London. And of course it would be that way, I feel at home there. Especially, it's that sign, with the arrow pointing down the tracks...and the way the wires are entwined with the branches...

Living in Potters Bar, my local train station is naturally the one I'm at the most, so I suppose I've developed an affinity for it. I like the seats at train stations - cold, hard, flat. None of this soft, cushiony crap for me taaa... I don't think we realize how much we appreciate a good seat until we're sitting on one, and we think 'Why aren't all the seats I have to sit on every day like this?' Granted, I reckon most people's idea of a good seat differs from mine. Usually, when I arrive at the train station, I've spent the last 20 minutes running - to the train station. So the feel of metal against your skin is quite welcome. Please don't surmise from that that I walk/run around with a bare arse. I just wear short skirts.

On the flipped side of the 'Potters Bar is nowhere' coin, Potters Bar station is peaceful and elderly, so there's never these nike-clad yobs eyeing you up and requesting your 'digits'. Oh, Finsbury Park, Finsbury Park...Of course, I'd take London and all its drawbacks over fucking Hertfordshire any day, it's just another one of those little things you come to appreciate. There's never many people there, there's always the option of solitude. No forced intimacy with smelly/spotty strangers. Or anyone at all for that matter. Air! Solitude! Hard seats! You must really be starting to see why I like this station. And thinking that I'm definately not a grumpy old man with a very uneventful life.