The Doors

When people run for the door of Sydney’s trains I don’t think it’s because they’re too impatient to wait three minutes for the next one. Not in my experience, anyway. People run because they have planned their trip to the station in a way that they don’t waste a second of their busy, important lives waiting. Every minute between leaving the house and stepping over the yellow line has been calculated and planned. Missing the train won’t just cost them a few minutes, it signifies a categorical failure in their ability to organise their own existence. A failure they would be forced to dwell on if they can’t squeeze their body through the closing door.

Sadly, I have been guilty of this too. Guilty of running through closing doors as well as turning daily commutes into Rush Hour. The latter, I’m starting to appreciate, is caused by an attitude problem. This is my childhood in the countryside talking, but Sydney is so large and complex and entangled within itself that getting from one side of it to the other is a complicated process. It’s up to the commuter, however, to decide for his or herself if these complexities and steps are obstacles or attractions.

What’s referred to as “The Golden Hours” in photography circles is the hour after sunrise, and the hour preceding sunset. That’s when the sky is interesting, the light is friendly, and rocks and walls get colours. For most of the year the golden hours overlap with peak hour. When you’re not rushing from place to place you can see the most amazing things at these times. I remember the first day I crossed the Harbour Bridge on a train at eight in the morning. A rising sun to the east was reflecting off skyscrapers and making the water sparkle crazy blue below. The foliage along the harbour stood out in bold, spring greens. It was magnificent, and everyone around me was staring at the screens of their phones. After a week, so was I.

I was rushing as usual on my way to work this morning when I was stopped by an distracting sight. It was an Australian wood duck standing on the top of a chimney. He stood, docile, surveying the world around him. In my field of vision he was a centrepiece in front of a gloomy yet beautiful, overcast sunrise. I see many things like this in the mornings and I always want to enjoy them, but I don’t. Today that changed. I decided catching the next train wouldn’t be a failure. I stopped walking. I stared at the duck.