The Commute

It’s late morning and I’ve only been up for an hour. This city keeps me up until the wee hours as my day often doesn’t end until 10:00 or even 11:00pm. Between school and studying and running around trying to get my life in order, sleep is elusive and inconvenient.

It rained all last night so the morning is beautiful, sunny, and crisp – shiny and clean and re-set. It’s always noisy here but the sounds are beginning to feel familiar, more of a soundtrack for a life that is becoming less new or noticeable. I don’t stare at the old buildings anymore or listen to the conversations of my neighbors (if I can understand them) or try to memorize the different stores so I can decide which ones I want to peruse in the future. I live in Harlem, near the Hudson and Riverside Park. I am the minority. Gentrification is new to me but very much a part of the choice I’ve made in moving here. I walk down our street towards Broadway.

Once on the main drag, I turn left and pass C-Town, the closest super market which is convenient but lacking the fresh produce that I miss so much from Bulgaria. There are farms in New York and opportunities to buy fresh veggies and fruits but, in the lower-income areas, it’s not always easy. There’s lots of small stores, fast food, a new bar that just opened up, packed every night with people watching a variety of sports – flirting and chatting and drinking, trying to relax for a few hours or trying to be seen. It reminds me of the night my friends and I went – the Grand Opening – I liked that the walls were chalkboards and had funny phrases written on them. The beers weren’t too outrageously priced and the staff was friendly and wearing unpretentious t-shirts which I found refreshing.

Onward for six full blocks as our apartment is smack-dab in the middle of the subway stations on both 145^th and 157^th. I walk in the direction of downtown since my school is on 13^th street.

Down to the subway, quickly digging through my purse to get my metro card before I hit the turnstiles that are often crowded with people trying to get in and out of the underground. It’s hot, stuffy. I would complain but then I think about how freezing and bitter this place must be in January. I see that my train, the 1, will be approaching the station in 3 minutes. I stand, waiting. When it pulls up, dozens of people poor out of the sliding doors and dozens more replace them, including me. Today there are spots available and I quickly sit down, squishing myself between a man who’s hat is pulled far down over is face in an attempt to sleep and a woman who is clutching her purse close and sitting on the edge of her chair as though she may make a run for it at any moment. Some people stand and chat, so accustomed to the swaying, backward and forward momentum of the train that they don’t feel the need to sit. I pull out a textbook and start reading. Economics. Statistics. Policy Analysis. It doesn’t really matter, I’m behind on my reading in every class, always trying so hard to catch up. I’d kill for 30-hour days.

Sometimes, there are performers down here. If you have to wait for a train for 5 minutes or more you may be serenaded by a young guitar player with a surprisingly wonderful voice and a sad, original song that makes you want to close your eyes and wait for the train just a little longer. The sounds bouncing off the walls that serve as appealing acoustics to these buskers, makes our wait just a little better. If they are bad, they have a few dollars in their open guitar case. If they are good, people are continuously walking over to drop anywhere from a combination of coins from the depths of their pockets to a few dollars. I love it when they’re good. I’ve been known to give a dollar or two.

When the subway hits my stop, I quickly walk out, through the turnstiles, up the stairs and back into the sunlight. The difference between Greenwich Village in downtown Manhattan is strikingly different from where I just came from – taller buildings, lots of trees, more well-known stores and eateries. I walk quickly down the busy streets, constantly millimeters away from running into the hordes of people coming from the opposite direction going to equally as important and pressing places as myself.

When I get inside my classroom and sit down, I mentally prepare myself for the massive amounts of information that will be flying my way over the next two hours and take a deep breath. 

-Age