My dress builds a little community

On a crowded peak hour train yesterday the lady opposite me asks me about my dress.  She tells me she likes it, she likes how colouful it is.  I laughed and said I felt a bit out of place in the city where everyone is wearing black, but I felt that I needed some colour to brighten up my day.  We chatted for a minute or so about where I'd bought it from, where it was made.

And then I pointed out that another lady opposite me was wearing bright red so she wasn't wearing typical city colours either.  The three of us chatted for a few minutes about how crowded the train was.  The lady who initiated the conversation had only moved from China two years ago and wanted to know if Sydney was always so busy, so crowded.  The lady in the red top started talking about how busy she found Sydney when she moved from Queensland 15 years ago.

THEN the bloke sitting next to me starts talking about how much slower the pace of life was in Israel where he had come from.  The conversation drifted in a general bemoaning of the lack of community, how no-one had time for one another anymore, how it was hard to trust strangers (the phrase 'but someone might follow you home' was mentioned) Yet, there we were.  Our own little community.  For a few minutes.  And then it was my stop.  There was a sense of disappointment from our little group.  That our community had ended.

My daughter was horrified when I told this story at the dinner table.  But how embarrassing Mum.  Why were you sitting on the train talking to people you didn't know?  I said, but that was why it was so great.

So unexpected.