“What’s the point?”, I could retort. Or talk about freedom, independence and self-determination.
But for now, I will just point you to the answer given by J. D. Salinger in his novella “Zooey“:
“I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you’re married.”
And you get to read on trains even less.
The Happy Hermit 
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Au contraire, I sit next to the window as often (if not more) now that I am married. Not only in a train, but sometimes in a crosstown bus, of all places.
Well, YOU are the girl.
It’s MS woman to you. BTW did the F & Z reference go straight over your head or were you in a fug of cigar smoke?
Trust me, you just need to find the right girl. Or more likely, it seems, have her find you. That’s basically how my wife and I met – we’d both given up, and were just out doing what we enjoyed, namely science-fiction conventions. But there was one key trait we shared, that made it definite.
We both love trains. And we take turns by the window. Even if most of the trains we’ve been on, have been static displays at railroad museums! :D
By the way, this was the 500th comment on my blog. Congratulations!
Would you believe my 500th post on your site was my 200th post? Well, from this Email, anyway. Weird, no? ;)
Not really, 200 and 500 are numbers just any other number!
But for me it is enjoyable to let my partner to sit beside the window and this is the beauty of the marriage.
Taking pleasure in what gives our partners pleasure is one of the great rewards of marriage!
Can you elaborate please for the benefit of all. Thank you.
Not true. When the right woman shows up, it won’t matter.
Haha! Thanks for commenting on my review of Franny and Zooey! By the way, I don’t know if I could dine at a restaurant called Sickler’s, either.
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Andreas, you don’t seriously believe that?! With the right girl, it won’t matter…
I’m not telling you to get married though. We’re on same page on this one, lol.
I was married in 1970 when I was 20 years old,my wife was the same age.She came from a middle class family in a white bread suburb of Dayton Ohio while I was born and raised in south Chicago. I loved her with all of my being,as she did me,and I thought our marriage would last forever. I was wrong.Although neither of us could be specifically blamed,our marriage ended in divorce in 1983.The last 5 years of which were by far the worst of my life.All I can remember is 5 years of constant pain,suffering,loss,anguish and grief. She remarried shortly after our divorce was final. I never remarried. Instead,I established a small business and earned a measure of personal and professional success that would have been impossible for me to accomplish had I remained married, Never again shall I ever give anyone the terrible power to hold me back from any lawful and peaceful pursuit. Never again-ever!
In some way, you are both to blame. & the only person who has the power to hold you back is yourself. That is your own fault. No one should keep you from your dreams b/c if they truly love you, you can do anything.
I hate the window seat. My husband can have it every time. :-)
Are you an only child? Hahaha… I feel like what this post is really saying is that you don’t wanna share! ;)
The quote about the train is interesting… I suppose it’s suggesting that you don’t want to give up the best views or missing anything beautiful for anything. And if you know that about yourself, that’s good. But it’s also like the other commenters were saying: it might not matter if you meet the right person. Maybe they’ll prefer the aisle seat or maybe they’ll be so beautiful that the view outside doesn’t compare.
Reading that quote (and yours beneath it) made me think about the few times I’ve ridden a train with other people. I’m primarily thinking of one ride next to a friend, on our way to Paris. We’d taken that route before (we were co-workers) and I took that time to either read or write. He just sat there and I asked him what he thought about and he said “I don’t know.” At that moment, I wondered how he couldn’t spend every moment thinking. And how given one of the few opportunities we had to have some downtime and solitude, how he wasn’t tempted to do either or those things. Interesting…
No, I do have a sister and a brother.
I’ve been on trains a lot and made a similar experience and I don’t understand how people can sit there and do nothing for a long time. I understand that when you ride for the first time or it’s a particular beautiful route, you want to look out of the window. But for commuters who take the same train every day, I don’t get it why they don’t at least read a book.
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