Take the Water

Training for the Amazing Race

Sometimes the hardest part of a long journey isn’t getting on the wrong train. It’s getting off the wrong train of thought.

Before this trip, I confessed to a friend that I was anxious.

Not about traveling alone or speaking enough Italian to point confidently at a piece of focaccia. I was anxious about the logistics: Barcelona to Lyon, Lyon to Turin, Turin to Venice. Two trains and a bus.

Somewhere along the way, I was bound to fuck something up.

He laughed and reminded me of one of my dreams.

“Think of it as training for The Amazing Race.”

This time, though, it felt less like reassurance than prophecy.

Family legend has it that my great-grandfather, before emigrating from what is now Belarus, arrived at the Lithuanian port a full day early, convinced that arriving early would prevent disaster. Instead, he slept by the docks and awoke to discover that everything had been stolen: his money, his belongings, even his ticket for passage.

So I come by this level of anxiety honestly. It’s practically in my DNA.

I’ve also learned that arriving early doesn’t always reduce anxiety. Sometimes it simply gives anxiety more time to work.

Which brings us to Turin.

I arrived early at Torino Porta Susa and eagerly waited for Venezia to appear on the departure board. As the departure time approached without a platform assignment, I became increasingly nervous. When Platform 2 finally appeared, my nervous system relaxed.

I found Platform 2, boarded confidently, stashed my suitcase, and went looking for seat 14C. There was a 14A and a 14B, but no 14C. Stranger still, it looked as though my seat was inside a private compartment.

Surely I didn’t pay for this.

A woman pushing the concession cart walked by, so I asked if this was the train to Venice.

She looked at me with the unmistakable expression of someone who had just inherited a problem she did not create.

“No. Calabria.”

The train was still standing in the station, so I sprinted toward my suitcase.

Just as I reached it, the train began to move.

I grabbed my phone and searched “Calabria.”

Oh, good God. I wasn’t headed to Venice. I was speeding toward one of the southernmost points in Italy.

The voice in my head arrived immediately: How could you be so careless? Way to go, fuck-up. This is going to ruin the day and cost an arm and a leg.

If my family handed me anything besides a good nose and a Jewish sense of humor, it may have been an instinct for catastrophe.

Interrupting my doom spiral, the woman with the concession cart reached into her supplies and offered me a bottle of water.

I thanked her and declined.

About thirty seconds later, as northern Italy blurred past the window, I realized I should have taken it.

Not because I was thirsty, although I probably was. Somewhere inside me, I had already decided that making a mistake meant I shouldn’t accept kindness. I needed to suffer first. Even grace, apparently, had to wait.

Noticing this was the first step. I took a deep breath, located the anxiety in my body, and thanked it for trying to keep me safe. Then, with a second, deeper breath, another Joshua sprang into action: the reassuring, compassionate problem-solver I usually save for other people.

I opened ChatGPT, with which I have a mostly healthy interdependent relationship, and began figuring out my options. I learned that the train would stop at Milano Centrale, where I could get back on course.

At the ticket counter, I explained what had happened with a smile. The agent smiled, furrowed her brow as she studied my ticket, then smiled again as she rebooked me on the next train to Venice without charging me a thing.

This time, I accepted the grace.

I have since learned that I’m far from the first traveler to board the wrong train at Torino Porta Susa. What had felt like evidence of extraordinary incompetence was, to the woman behind the counter, probably just another Monday morning.

By the time I settled into my new seat, with slightly less legroom than before, I realized my friend had been right. This really had been training for The Amazing Race.

Not because I had learned how to board the right train, but because I had learned that the only train that really needed derailing was my train of thought: the one racing toward shame, catastrophe, and the belief that every mistake must be paid for before grace can be received.

Mindfulness, I’ve come to believe, is less about remaining calm than about noticing which train you’re actually on. Sometimes it’s headed toward Milan. Sometimes it’s carrying your imagination much farther than reality ever intended.

Either way, the practice is the same: breathe, notice what is happening within, accept the offered water, ask for help, take the next useful step, and keep moving.

Venice, it turns out, was waiting for me all along.