Making Tracks

There are third world countries with more Starbucks than there are in Brooklyn. No welcoming green signs anywhere in sight, so I had to survive the forty-five minute subway ride into Manhattan without adequate chemical fortification. Torture.

Other than that (and the guy wearing the Kum & Go tee shirt who sat next to me on the platform as I awaited the train's arrival), my Sunday morning adventure on the "F" train was quite pleasant. Even (or especially) the gritty Brooklyn streets have a certain charm in the early hours of a balmy Sunday. It's a place without manicured lawns, without white picket fences, without pairs of well heeled women in spandex walking to nowhere. It's a place where garbage bags are strewn in front of doorways, where yards -- if they exist at all -- are no bigger than a postage stamp, where someone out running is probably being chased. But on Sunday mornings there's a certain quiet that transcends the traffic and the incessant yelling and even the thunderous roar of the "F" train as it approaches the elevated, graffiti filled platform on 18th Avenue. Much of the city is still asleep, and its perpetual motion has been temporarily reduced to a soothing whir.

On the train, I sat across from a young guy sleeping something off, two lesbians (the close cropped hair was my first clue; the passionate impromptu kiss sealed the deal), and an Asian woman clutching a cane with a duct taped handle. Not your average suburban crew. Well, except for the young guy sleeping something off, which is, I'm sure, happening in suburban households everywhere.

They all seemed oblivious when I snapped their picture, or, if not oblivious, at least indifferent. I imagine that, on a train in deep dark suburbia, my cell phone might very well have been confiscated by a pimply faced police-boy with a little notepad and a water gun in his holster. I wondered where they were all going this early on a Sunday, why the lesbians had left their Subaru at home. I wondered if they wondered where I was going, with my designer purse and my carry-on suitcase and my laptop. Given their reaction to my picture snapping, probably not.

As much as I enjoy driving in New York, I had to leave the car in my mom's garage this morning so I can just catch a cab from the hospital to the airport later this afternoon. After spending a good hour last night trying to navigate my way out of Chinatown (where I dropped my son at a friend's apartment) and back into Brooklyn through the maze of entrance and exit ramps for various unfamiliar bridges, I was actually glad for the break.

It was nice to just sit and watch, to know that the honking horns were not directed at me, to see what other New Yorkers do on warm weekend mornings. I'll let you know when I figure it out.