Seven-year-old Isabella Thompson pressed her hands into the cool, moist dirt of her grandfather's garden. She peeled away the surface like an old scab. Beneath, a reddish-brown earthworm squirmed – ... [+]
I've never been less than an hour early for my train. I don't know if it comes from a sense of heightened preparedness or an ongoing current of anxiety that doesn't even let me sleep in on weekends. Years of sitting in an airport two hours before another passenger arrived ingrained this practice in me. For so long, I hated the limbo of traveling yet sitting still. I ended up counting the seconds as they strolled by to occupy my brain. I don't mind the time now. It's a moment to pause. It's a moment to observe the world around me I take for granted every day.I walked into 30th street station at