Overheard: F Train, York Street

She had huge brown eyes and a swinging ponytail.  Her backpack bunched up her shoulders. She wore a black coat, black pants.  Her friend was the one dressed in rainbow. Long spidery eyelashes. Earrings that brushed her shoulders.

I think when I'm finished with school, when I'm a nurse, I'll be a nurse for twenty or thirty years and then I'll be done with it.  I'll be something else.

You'll go back to school? The friend asked. When you're fifty?

I don't want one career. I want two careers.  I'll be a nurse and then I'll be something else. And when I'm fifty, I'll appreciate school more. When you're young you don't appreciate school.

What will you be when you're fifty?

Maybe. A dentist.

She looked through the glass of the subway doors as we slowed to a stop.  Her eyes did that frantic zig-zag scan, the kind of flash panic that comes when you've passed where you thought you might be, but you're really ahead of it. 

I totally thought we missed our stop.  This is it.

I loved her way of thinking.  The certainty that she wouldn't be one thing but many. The idea that she may not appreciate now what she might then or that becoming doesn't end with youth.

I started to think if I could be one thing now and something else in twenty years, what would that be?  

What would it be for you?

You Are

The always honest, always intelligent Meg at Write Meg! wrote about jealousy and the way social networking sites like Facebook allow us to see into more lives to measure ourselves against. Her post spoke to me because I have always struggled with that (have expressed it many times here.)  I've gauged my progress against others (particularly when it comes to publishing), desperate to catch up, feeling so far behind where I want or need to be in many aspects of life.  I still feel behind. I don't know if that feeling will ever go away. But, recently, I have been just a little more accepting about where I am (that is to say, behind.)

Over the past two years, there has been a lot of construction work on my train, the F train.  It often leaves me stranded on weekends, forced to take a bus that sits, stalled in traffic, along a very crowded Smith Street.

Once, I stood next to a couple I think of often.  The woman was frantic about needing to get somewhere or maybe just wanting to and there were loud sighs and glances at a watch and a lot of what is happening and why are we sitting and wouldn't it be faster if we just walked?  I understood her frustration.  If I had someone to voice my concerns to, I would have whined just the same.  But her companion was perfectly calm.  'You are where you're meant to be," he said.

That's easy to say. Perhaps, harder to believe.  Or maybe not. Maybe it really is as simple as that?

F is for the F Train

I live in Brooklyn, which means that I take the subway nearly every single day. In the warmer months, I commute to work by bicycle but for all the rainy, snowy, cold days (which is a majority of the year in the Northeast) I take the train. And the F train is my train.

To be honest, I don't have many good things to say about the F train. It takes me 10 minutes to walk to the Carroll Street stop, which isn't all that convenient. In the summer the line is almost always delayed due to extreme heat and electrical failures. The rest of the year it is the victim of major construction and shuts down a lot on the weekends, leaving me stranded. And, every year, when the New York Post grades the MTA, the F train...gets an F.

But, the F is my train. I don't have a car and my bicycle can only get me so far. I've read a lot of books on the F train. On days when we sit in the station for 45 minutes and the MTA forgets to announce that they're suspending the line, I get 45 extra minutes to read. And that's 45 extra minutes I don't have to be at work!

So thank you F train. You may not be the fastest. You may not be the most reliable. But you're mine.