To commute is to trudge. Yes, one must be nimble, must dash quickly into the car as the doors are closing. But there is a good amount of trudging involved, too.

The other day, as I was hiking up a broken escalator, concentrating on the thin-strapped gold sandals of the woman ahead of me, I thought that if we can’t walk a mile in someone’s shoes, we can always walk a few paces behind them.

Doing so may not give us complete access to the stranger’s hopes and dreams and worries, but it does accustom us to her pace, to the effort she puts forth to climb a flight of stairs, which in some cases is herculean.

At the very least it requires a pause and a shifting of priorities, a switch from me to thee. I don’t like it, of course. I’d rather rush up the stairs at my own pace. But trudging keeps me mindful of the lives of others.