Just to the east of the Providence Place Mall, there’s a building you might think is a train station. And it is. But apparently, it’s also the site of The Nightly Race.

I know this because on New Year’s Day, I heard a story told to my family at dinner by the man I thought was my husband. And he is. But apparently, he’s also a Nightly Racer.

“It’s not so bad,” said my husband when asked about his commute home on the train from Boston. “In fact, it’s kind of fun.”

Huh?

“There’s an unwritten game. We play it every night. Soon as we pull out of South Attleboro, people start jockeying for position.”

In South Attleboro?

“The last car on the train is where you want to be.”

It is?

“That’s because when the train stops at the platform in Providence, the last car is perfectly positioned right in front of the stairwell. If you do it right, you should be standing in the doorway, ready to step out onto the platform, ideally just before the train comes to a complete stop. The MBTA doesn’t condone this, of course. But it can give you a nanosecond jump on the other commuters.”

And this is important?

“Soon as you step off, you race for the door and up the stairs, which if you’re a serious racer, you take two steps at a time.”

A serious racer?

The idea is to get down to the garage faster than the other people. If you’re really fast, you can jump on the elevator, hit the close door button before anyone else can get on, and beat the others downstairs. Soon as the elevator doors open, you run for your car, unlocking your doors, electronically of course, as soon as you’re within range. Throw your bag in the back, hop inside, start your car and go. You wait to buckle your seatbelt until you’re in motion. The main thing is to get in motion ASAP. When you get good at it, which I am, you will always be no worse than the third car out of the garage.”

That’s great, honey.

“And most times, I’m first.”

It was hard to keep a straight face what with the gales of laughter all around the table, the lingering image of all those commuters running from the train, briefcases in hand, their competitive energy apparently pent up from sitting in an office all day, jockeying to be the first car out of the garage.

It was hard to believe that this story was coming from this man, my gentle husband who, in all his years of commuting, had never mentioned his little game before. Well, at least he’s eager to get home.

Just as it was difficult not to keep thinking about what he had said in the days ahead, wondering if there was some way we could do this, too, in our own lives, in our own way.

Maybe there is.

Maybe we can try to look at the same old thing in a fresh new way. Infuse fun into the most mundane of chores. Turn a routine into a game. Step lively into our lives — okay, so maybe we don’t have to race — but we can pick up the pace. Shift our perspective. Create possibility. Imagine change.

It is a new year, after all.

Rita Lussier can be reached at ReetsAL@aol.com or by mail c/o Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.