#46: Life in a Metro

in praise of the daily commute

Dear reader,

The week starts on Monday now, like it does in most of the world. There is a constant slurring buzz at night when I go to bed. The city thuds, hisses, smokes relentlessly outside my window. I wake early, before the sun.

I pass by mosques lit up with the full moon watching. I pass by tired people coming home just before dawn. The 5:00AM train is enticingly empty, lit up in gold like she wants me to notice. The whole way, there is no wind. Sometimes the sky will spare a breeze leftover from the island I lived on barely a month ago.

The commute is quickly turning into a time of sacred observation: look twice before crossing the road, yes, but also - notice the ash-coloured clouds. the dips in the pavement. the shopkeepers in their rituals before opening their doors. I get to do this, witness this part of town toss in its last few minutes of sleep before the day beckons. I get to walk, and watch, and imagine the lives around me as they go to work.

Each morning I find myself becoming part of a larger choice/group/purpose: standing on the train waiting for the right stop, holding back with other pedestrians before oncoming traffic, clocking in to a corporate office that’s another city on its own. It’s humbling and empowering in the same breath. After living a large life for half a decade, it is such a privilege to feel small and simple-minded again. I have to rush to catch up. Feel for unfamiliar roads and reach into them to make them a way back home.

Stopping points: the start of something, a vinyl store in Alserkal, a Christmas spread at the office, a sleepy Pepper on my clothes.

The office is stark, but not uninviting. A monitor, a laptop half my body weight, a rolling chest of draws. Space that is empty and unclaimed - space that is slowly becoming all mine. With each morning, I drop little bits of my self around the place. A pen gifted by a friend. Aloe spray for my skin. A notebook that cost too much. Heeled shoes for an emergency. A printout of Excel sheet shortcuts. The day drones on with perky chatter and hurried typing. I pick up my bags in the mid-afternoon and wave goodbye to everyone else. I make my way back to the streets.

Once I’m back in the bedroom generously loaned out to me by friends we call family, it’s another story. I sit at someone else’s desk and watch her world patiently encourage me: sticky notes and vision boards and family photos with faces I don’t recognize. The gigantic cats huddle next to the shirt I’ve left sprawled out on the bed like it’s a heater. Suddenly, I have time. I can read a book. Or two.

Or I could get back to writing. And send it to you.

Love,

Kaav.