February 2, 2005

Back in The City

NEW YORK -- The E train from JFK into town was pretty empty at Sutphin Boulevard in Queens. I had nothing else to do other than sit and watch the others around me.

The young black man sat across from me in a full winter coat alternating between staring at the window scratchings on the other side of the train and playing a game on his mobile phone. The Asian woman to his right fell asleep until 7th Avenue in midtown and then promptly got up and off the train. The petite black woman who replaced the Asian woman wore a brown leather skirt and black rubber goulashes. She hid behind 1978-vintage sunglasses and a thick brown scarf staring who knows where. The final destination on the westbound train read nostalgically "World Trade Center."

It hasn't changed.

The passenger flow on the train was constant traveling into town, like watching the ebb and flow of an incoming tide. But I was alone among the hundred some people in my car in the middle of the train.

Alone.

I knew that, but hadn't remembered it before I got onto the train from the airport.

It'll take about 24 hours to get into the swing of things here, but what quickly hits home is that one can be truly alone in this city of more than eight million. I think I'd rather be here and feel alone than in South Carolina and under constant scrutiny.

That might be giving in to the people down South, but so be it. Five years in a place I don't like could be my Russian winter.

- Rich