🚇 Subway and the City, Part One
When New York City breaks the fourth wall for your fantasy self
“These days I think of New York as the capsized city. Half-capsized, anyway, with the inhabitants hanging on, most of them still able to laugh as they cling to the island that is their life’s predicament.”
—Maeve Brennan, The Long Winded Lady (1969)
The train pulled into the station right as I started descending the steps. While shaking off my umbrella, awkwardly squeezing it through the turnstile, I spotted a man in my peripheral vision following close behind. We both made it onto the car just in time, plopping into seats directly across from each other with relief.
I opened my Peloton app to start a ten-minute “morning commute” meditation.1 But just before shutting out the world, upon noticing a certain embroidered logo on his backpack, I gladly handed my monkey mind the reins.
“Are you part of the crew?” I asked, too softly. He couldn’t hear me over his noise-cancelling headphones.
I pointed toward his backpack this time, hoping the gesture would get his attention. “Are you part of the crew?” I asked again, enunciating for better lip reading. He pulled his headphones down, and I gathered my AirPods in the palm of my hand.
“I am!” he said, unexpectedly cheerful for such an early morning, both of us still groggy. It was only six-thirty. “I just attended the new season’s premiere last night; didn’t even leave until eleven p.m.”
Picturing the red carpet, the glamorous dresses, and the chorus of heavy clicks from camera flashes in the paparazzi pit sent a flutter of joy through me. So that makes me one degree away from attending, I thought, a delulu fantasy whereby I’m rubbing shoulders with some of my longest-standing parasocial besties.
This delightful serendipity infusion would come in handy later, when the city sanded me down again, but I didn’t know that yet. I wouldn’t, until I checked my email that afternoon.
