But I am beginning to understand the studies which attribute inner-city violence to the lack of green space and quiet in urban teens' lives.

It is impossible to escape the city, the rush, the crowds, the noise.

Even the National Mall, the mile-long National Park Service land stretching from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol, offers little respite.

During the summer, the grass turns brown, trampled by tourist crowds, the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folk-life and the sun. And the central panel, absent of trees, is often nothing but hazy and hot.

For the last several weeks, as I've reached the top of the Metro escalator at L'Enfant Plaza, I've been greeted by teenagers wearing T-shirts emblazoned "Safe Summer '96." Usually they're selling newspapers, though one day a group was playing the guitar.

My reaction has been that although I think it's terrific that these kids have been given a project, what these D.C. teens really need is to get out of the city for the summer.

They need to go someplace where open spaces are really green, where rivers are bordered with trees and campgrounds instead of expensive water-front property populated by restaurants and hotels and office buildings. All city dwellers, I think, need to get out on a regular basis.

So this past weekend, I joined the commuters and boarded the 5:30 MARC train out of Washington's Union Station bound for my mountain retreat in West Virginia.

They're a funny group, these commuters. There's a sleeping group, a reading group and a drinking group (this is mostly a Friday phenomenon, I'm told).

As the concrete cityscape outside the train window transforms into rolling green hills, the people, too, are transformed. The ties come off, the faces relax. People laugh.

It's very different from my Metro commute. On the Metro, even in the evenings, even on Fridays, the city dwellers keep working. They read reports, scribble notes; they're always serious.

But the country dwellers leave work behind in the city. They talk about families and weekend plans.

I wouldn't want to make that daily commute; it means getting up too early and getting home too late. But I understand why people do.

Life really is calmer, slower and friendlier outside the city.

In my building, neighbors have brief conversations in the elevators. But in the country, neighbors talk for hours in the shade of spacious front and back yards.