The Window Between Trains

It started with a train ride.

I was sitting by the window, not really thinking—just watching. Another train pulled alongside mine, close enough that I could see into its cars. For a while, we moved together in perfect sync. Two trains, two paths, but somehow in step.

I looked out my window and into theirs. For a moment, it was like looking into a mirror—not because I saw myself, but because I felt seen. The rhythm of my breath matched something beyond me. The world outside blurred, but the connection between the windows sharpened.

Then, one of the trains—maybe mine, maybe theirs—began to pull ahead. Or fall behind. It’s hard to tell which, when you’re moving. The view shifted, the moment passed, and the other train veered away. Just like that, the alignment was gone.

But something stayed with me.

It wasn’t dramatic. No revelation, no lightning bolt. Just a soft opening. A sense of returning to myself—not through effort, but through surrender. A letting-go of trying to control the ride. No more reaching or adjusting or leaning forward to anticipate the next stop.

Just sitting upright. Breathing. Watching.

In that small space of quiet, I realized: awareness doesn’t need to do anything. It doesn’t need to chase or analyze or fix. It only needs to see. And sometimes, when conditions line up just right, it sees itself—through another’s window, through a still moment, through the gentle unfolding of now.

A mirror only reflects when something stands in front of it. But sometimes, we become both the mirror and the one reflected. Not passengers, not observers. Just presence.

We are simply seeing.
Simply being.
Not on a train, but of it.
Not through the window, but as the window.
Wide open.