Commuting 5-10

At the subway station in Brooklyn: this morning and there is a line of four people in front of me and I can hear the train coming. I won’t make this train. Three people in front of me, and the train enters the station. I won’t make it. Two people in front of me, it is a short train and pulling ahead to the far end of the station. I won’t make it.

Finally I am through the turnstile and it is a clear shot down the platform so I make a run for it. A real run, not a jog, not a quick-shuffle fast walk, a sprint, chest up, stride long and I do make it. Not just to squeeze into the last car, I take that joy of movement, that thrilling, competent release to the second car and long before the doors shut on the shufflers and joggers behind me. A teeny goofy joy.

On the platform in Chinatown: there is a pinched and hobbling man arranging pieces of garbage around a bench. Moving around and around with great deliberation, placing a flyer here, a wrinkled tissue there, touching touching touching, patting into place. I watch him for a moment, sad, he is what the Chinese social workers I work with call “out of harmony.” As I leave I hear the rumble of an oncoming train, feel the rush of air I know will destroy his work, his world, his attempt at balance and part of me aches for the destruction he is about to endure.

On the street on the Lower East Side: One lone enormous bearded iris rises and unfolds its white wings over the greening underplantings and groundcover in the park I pass every day. I hope that soon there will be others to join it, a flock of cranes bobbing and nodding on their long stems.