Chicken Pi. That was how her story started. The woman who kindly shared her life with me on the Amtrak train back to Boston.
However, this was not how my journey began. When I first got onto the train, attempting to find a seat on the almost full train car, I had almost no other option but to sit next to a middle aged man, too wrapped up in his computer codes to think about anything other than just that. Between the spurts of swears and his open coffee cup spilling on the floor next to me, I couldn’t help but think of what a jerk this guy was. Thankfully, he got off two stops after I sat down. This is when I met Chicken Pi.
Relieved that I now had the row to myself, I had moved over to enjoy the window seat for the rest of the trip by myself (or so I thought). Quickly after that, a woman came down the aisle and sat right next to me letting me know “I’m joining ya, ok?” However, I didn’t have much of a choice. I immediately removed my headphones, knowing that those wouldn’t be her only words. I was right. She shared with me that her cousin, Susan, was the reason she was looking at her phone. She had to let her know when she would be arriving at the South Kingston stop. The text was addressed to “Pi,” which I did not question at first. She went on to tell me their story. Her and Cousin Susan were not only cousins, but best friends, who would be attending their 50th high school reunion together.
While the story started small, it rapidly turned into a sharing of life experiences that I can only hope I will get close to in my lifetime. As one chapter ended, I would start the next by asking her another one of my 100 questions that continued to pop up in my head while listening. “Oh that’s a whole other can of worms, I’m sure you’d like to get back to reading,” she’d say. Each time, I told her that her life was much more interesting than the book in my hands.
I went on to hear about her PhD from Harvard, and the inspiration of one article that influenced her journey to Switzerland to be a part of an immunology lab, where she met her husband of 35 years and counting. We talked about her cross-country road trips - once with her roommate, and once with her mom who cried at the Grand Canyon because of its beauty. She told me about her and Cousin Susan’s trip to Woodstock, where people smoked, and babies were born. She told me about how she decided to become the first woman to be mayor in North Haven, CT, and how she continues to try to help people as best as she can by designating $2 every day to a different homeless man on her walks around Washington DC, where she currently lives.
Before I knew it, almost two hours had passed, and I had not moved from the page I was on when Pi had sat down next to me. I found myself sad that this woman who was a stranger to me just hours before was leaving. I wished that I had just a little more time to hear a few more stories. However, I did get to hear one last story, which is really where it all began. “One more thing, how come they call you Chicken Pi?” I asked her. She told me that her father was so surprised by her weight as a baby that he had originally nicknamed her “blubber,” which did not make her mother happy, something she expressed to him over dinner one night, chicken pot pie. He said, “What am I supposed to call her? Chicken Pie?” and so it stuck, and evolved to eventually become “Chicken Pi,” or “Pi,” for short. She gave me a hug, and thanked me for listening to her stories. However, I told her that it was me who should be thanking her for sharing. I immediately typed up as many details as I could remember after she left, just so I could look back at them someday. I sat there in awe thinking about what a life this woman has made for herself, and as she told me she’s “still goin'!”
You can tell a story, or you can listen to one. Either way. you will be contributing the importance of storytelling - an art that seems to be getting lost in the bustle of the new technological age. On that four-hour train ride, I learned that there are two types of people in this world - the busy man whom I first sat next to, and Chicken Pi.
In my opinion, I would always prefer some Chicken Pi.
