Mass transit choreography. When you walk through the doors, you find an empty seat.
You don’t sit directly next to another rider, unless the train is already full—and even then, only if some people are already standing. If you want to sit and you see a half-seat, people will move over to make a whole seat. Compassion exists, no matter what anyone says.
The most sat-in seats are the ones next to the doors, the ones with safety bars on the side—and when you sit in one, you can feel the warmth of the hundred butts that have sat there today, millions this month, trillions in a lifetime.
How funny it is, if my shorts or dress or skirt are short enough, I will feel the sweat of a million strangers mixing with my own on the back of my thighs.
How funny to try to understand my instant rage when a full train empties and a stranger doesn’t slide over to create space between us. Don’t they see choreography the same way I do?
How lucky it is to be a man, legs spread wide open in public.
Before New York, I was afraid of germs and afraid of being seen. Now, all I am is covered in dirt and sweat and car exhaust fumes and cockroach poop and other people’s gazes, and yet I am less anxious and more sure of myself than before.
Before New York, I wanted to be someone important and I wanted to make a difference and I wanted to change the word. Now, all I am is one in 8.4 million, and I work in a restaurant, and yet I’ve never felt less depressed or more grateful to be exactly who I am in this world.
Riding the subway has taught me: Nothing in this world makes more of a difference than filling your eyes with compassion and seeing strangers as people.