Writing in Transit

Mural on the side of Marcus Books in Oakland, CA

"Hi there, miss, what are you reading?"

I rarely just sit on the subway. More often, my face is buried in a book or I am scribbling away in an oversized notebook, causing passengers around me to squirm as they try to read my loopy handwriting (yes, I see you!). Where others use Ipod headphones to block out strangers, I just pretend to be absorbed. I returned the man's gaze with a less-than-amused look.

"It's about Arkansas in the 1950s," I replied.

The book was really about a murder in Arkansas in 1955, but the funny smirk on his face told me that that wasn't what he was interested in. He launched into a disconnected monologue about how it was important to learn about the past, anything to keep on talking to me. I turned back to the book. Yet another awkward catcall in NYC, yet another moment when I disappear into the rabbit hole of good writing.

I recently finished Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, most of which was read in transit. It was such a necessary read for me -- I was sucked into the main character's world, the parts I could relate to and the ones I didn't. For a very brief overview, the book is about a Nigerian immigrant to the United States who becomes a blogger about race and being non-American black in the US. It's also kind of a love story. But, as several people expressed at a dinner party last Tuesday, that's not really the point. The point, we reasoned, was to tell a political narrative using some good word choice and a set of relatable characters.

I'm writing a short story to gear up for National Novel Writing Month and these are the sorts of thoughts that preoccupy me. If I could reduce the story into a single sentence, it would be: "two childhood friends are forced to say a painful goodbye." But the "message" is more like understanding how we deal with intimacy and estrangement in our everyday lives. It's obvious more in the feeling of the story than the text. And yet I'm still crossing out sections and drawing arrows every third word, nervous that I am not striking the right balance. It's a luxury to be confident, there is no doubt.

When the man gets up at the next station, I exhale heavily through my nose. I had been reading the same sentence over and over again, wondering whether he would try to talk to me again. It crosses my mind that I worry a lot about things that I can't control. I put the book away and dig into my bag for a pen. Sometimes, you just have to react.

Songs On Repeat

This place has gotten so comfortable that I'm playing music over and over again in my head and singing it out loud at random intervals. I think I've become slightly creepy.
I know that I always take the time to tout the merits of being here, but I've just realized that there is always something to do here - and to a person who has to be chronically busy, that's a good thing.
Anyway, enough about the merits of Barnard, I am going to write a series of Snapshots of New York in order to profess my happenings here in easily digestible bites. Yeah, that's my inner newscaster.
1. My all-time favorite. We were buying dresses at a local stand and there was a Muslim black woman speaking with a black man; she was outfitted in traditional garb but her voice was definitely characteristic of the American black person. They were discussing women's rights - peacefully! I always hear things about conflict between people: Christians don't understand Muslims, they are automatically targeting each other's faults, making everything seem horrible when it's just different... But they were just talking about how people don't understand that women choose to be under the hijab and that there is respect, not oppression, in that culture. It just made me smile and feel as if there is hope for the world.
2. When we were lost in Harlem (or Washington Heights - we got on a train and went uptown and I don't know from there) it was very scary and there were mobs of shady people and trash [a real 'experience' from a suburban girl who hasn't really met the inner-city (thank God for brown skin!)] However, amidst it all, as Amy and I were walking down we overheard a conversation with a guy and his daughter. He was telling her a story about autistic children and how they have problems; the girl was very small, and so she asked questions. He said that there were people in the world who just didn't give up on them and they improved: his last line was "Don't ever give up on anybody."
3. Walking around Time Square, there are throngs of people. Hawkers selling things on the street, vendors selling halal hot dogs and other tidbits for reasonable prices, Indian-run souvenir shops with long lines of tourists. I think that the bright lights get to you sometimes; you watch up and not down and that's where you get your purse stolen. But I think that the nightlife is what really appeals to me - a short subway ride away there is an all-night party and no one can stop it.
4. These same subway rides, every once in a while, produce something else entirely. From the most innocuous (such as a man singing gospel songs in order to gain a little spare cash) to the most saddening (a one-eyed beggar who could barely speak asking for donations), it is always a different ride. There were kids selling candy for a dollar each so that they could get some money; there were pierced people and cut people just laughing along as they rode downtown... Our friend even got trapped outside the train as we laughed and waited for him at the next stop. It really is a 'snapshot' to take any subway train.

Now that I've gone on way too long, I just wanted to note that there is something different everywhere you turn. No matter where you're going or what you're doing, it's the experience that you're living for - and there's an experience every minute.
We are going to jam-pack our last two weeks here.

Read more posts about my awesome Barnard pre-college experience.
You may also be interested in reading about what happened when I started attending Barnard for college.