Since moving into the city and still commuting to Adelphi three times a week and going to Brooklyn to do observations twice a week and exploring areas of Manhattan on the weekends, to say that I am on the train/subway a lot is an understatement. Usually when I tell people of my current situation in response to, "So what are you doing with your life now?" they usually meet my explanation of my train riding with, "Oh that really sucks." To be blunt, paying for the train is probably the one thing I do not enjoy about the commute and it still beats filling up on overpriced gas (although I really do miss my Turkish friend at the gas station).
I remember last year when Kyle Dargan came into my Contemporary Poetry class to do a reading with us (awesome) he was talking about the interesting phenomenon that is trains/subways. He was talking about how once in a subway for example, you enter this vortex of space that you share with countless random people, which seemingly operates outside the constraints of time and other real life factors. For the time that you occupy that subway, that is your community; all aware that you are essentially unaware of what is happening elsewhere...cell phones don't even work. You trust the subway to bring you exactly where you need to go and trust that the people you share the space with will abide by the unwritten subway rules, even the guy doing back-flips in the middle of the car to try and get a few bucks somehow abides by these "rules." You occupy a space that you call your own, a small seat in the third car, yet the community of riders is so extraordinarily vast. People watching is totally acceptable and arguably promoted as a subway "rule," yet conversing with strangers is few and far between. I do love the random conversations you can end up having during these rides on the train/subway. They are so rare that I know that there's definitely a story every time I've had such random conversation.
Most of the time however I love just sitting and reading or listening to music or playing with my phone and enjoying one of the few moments during the day where I let myself relax enough to think about nothing or think about everything. I love having a designated amount of time to just chill before I go to school and am reminded how confused I am about life and what I am doing with it. My train riding and subway riding have replaced the shower as the number one place where I get the most thinking done and for me this is an absolutely necessary part of "bon vivant." Appreciate the moments you have to be with yourself and your thoughts alone. Riding the subway and trains with different people everyday reminds me how big the world is yet the solace I find there as a single passenger is absolutely fab.
I remember last year when Kyle Dargan came into my Contemporary Poetry class to do a reading with us (awesome) he was talking about the interesting phenomenon that is trains/subways. He was talking about how once in a subway for example, you enter this vortex of space that you share with countless random people, which seemingly operates outside the constraints of time and other real life factors. For the time that you occupy that subway, that is your community; all aware that you are essentially unaware of what is happening elsewhere...cell phones don't even work. You trust the subway to bring you exactly where you need to go and trust that the people you share the space with will abide by the unwritten subway rules, even the guy doing back-flips in the middle of the car to try and get a few bucks somehow abides by these "rules." You occupy a space that you call your own, a small seat in the third car, yet the community of riders is so extraordinarily vast. People watching is totally acceptable and arguably promoted as a subway "rule," yet conversing with strangers is few and far between. I do love the random conversations you can end up having during these rides on the train/subway. They are so rare that I know that there's definitely a story every time I've had such random conversation.
Most of the time however I love just sitting and reading or listening to music or playing with my phone and enjoying one of the few moments during the day where I let myself relax enough to think about nothing or think about everything. I love having a designated amount of time to just chill before I go to school and am reminded how confused I am about life and what I am doing with it. My train riding and subway riding have replaced the shower as the number one place where I get the most thinking done and for me this is an absolutely necessary part of "bon vivant." Appreciate the moments you have to be with yourself and your thoughts alone. Riding the subway and trains with different people everyday reminds me how big the world is yet the solace I find there as a single passenger is absolutely fab.
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