I caught the 6 train at 6AM this morning and I want to tell you something nobody warns you about New York in August.
The subway platform at that hour feels like the inside of a dosa pan. Radiating. Personal. The kind of heat that makes you rethink every life decision that brought you underground.
But then the 6 train pulled in almost empty, and there was one working AC car, and I slid onto that orange bench like I'd won something.
I was heading to a sample sale in Soho that opened stupid early, and the whole city was still doing that thing it does before 7 — pretending to be gentle. Delivery guys stacking crates on Lafayette. A man watering the sidewalk outside a shuttered cafe. The light coming in low and gold off the buildings like someone forgot to turn off a filter.
The 6 train at 6AM is a different animal than the 6 train at 6PM. At 6PM it's armpits and rage. At 6AM it's just you and three night-shift nurses and a guy asleep with a paperback on his chest.
I thought about Ahmedabad, where 6AM meant my Nani already awake, already praying, already scolding the milk for boiling over. Mornings were never quiet there. They were full. Here, morning is a thing you can have to yourself.
I got off at Spring Street sweating through my linen shirt and I didn't even care. Bought an iced coffee I couldn't afford from a place with exposed brick and too much attitude.
The sample sale, for the record, was chaos. Worth it. More on that another day.
But the ride there — that's what stayed with me. The 6 train at 6AM, holding the whole summer in one air-conditioned car.
Set your alarm early once. The city will show you a face it hides all day.
Love,