The 1 train at 137th Street in July does not care about your dignity.
It is 8:47am and the platform is a wall of heat that hugs you like an aunty you haven't seen in ten years. Too tight. Too long. Smells vaguely of pretzels and other people's regret.
I stand near the yellow line pretending I am unbothered. I am extremely bothered. My kajal is already migrating south.
But here's the thing about the 1 train at 137th Street in July — it's the most alive I feel all day. There's a man selling churros nobody should eat at this temperature. There's a girl reading a paperback with the spine broken so bad it's basically two books. There's a dad holding his daughter's hand and quietly explaining which train is the express, and I want to cry because my Papa did that for me at Kalupur station once.
The train comes. It is somehow hotter inside than out, which violates several laws of physics and one law of God.
I get squished between a NYU sweatshirt and someone's yoga mat. I make eye contact with a woman across the car and we both do the small nod. The nod that says: yes, this is hell, but we are in it together, and that is almost nice.
By 96th Street the AC kicks in like a mercy from above. By Columbus Circle I've almost forgotten the swamp of it.
I used to think I'd learn to drive here. I used to think I'd escape all this. Now I can't imagine my mornings without the 1 train at 137th Street, without the churro man, without the collective suffering that somehow makes eight million strangers feel like a very sweaty family.
New York doesn't let you be alone. Even when you want to be. Especially then.
I stepped off at 66th Street feeling like a wrung-out dupatta and completely, stupidly grateful.
Some cities you live in. This one lives in you.
Love,