There is a specific loneliness to the 6 train at 7AM in July, and I have come to love it.
I get on at 68th Street, half-asleep, iced coffee sweating through the paper cup before I've even swiped in. The car is never full this early. Just me, a few nurses coming off night shifts, and one man who reads an actual paperback like it's 1998.
My morning 6 train commute wasn't always something I looked forward to. For months it was just the thing between my bed and my desk. Something to survive.
But this summer flipped it.
Maybe it's the light. At this hour the sun slants through the windows when we hit the elevated stretch, and everything turns gold for exactly forty seconds before we dive back underground. I always look up for it now. My little ghar-ka moment, like the way sunlight used to hit the kitchen tiles back home in Ahmedabad while Mummy made chai.
Here it's iced coffee from the Ukrainian deli on Lexington. The man there calls me "boss" and never gets my order wrong. Extra ice, oat milk, one pump of something I can't pronounce.
The morning 6 train commute has taught me that peace isn't a big dramatic thing. It's not a beach or a mountain. Sometimes it's just a cold cup and a warm window and nobody needing anything from you for eleven stops.
I used to think I had to earn stillness. Grind first, breathe later. New York teaches you that fast — that rest is something you buy back at the end, if you're lucky.
But these forty seconds of gold light are free. Every day. Nobody's charging me for them yet.
By the time we hit Grand Central, the car has filled up and the spell breaks. Suits, AirPods, a stroller. Real life boots up again.
I finish my coffee at 33rd Street and toss the cup before the platform stairs.
Some days the city is a war. But at 7AM on the 6, it's almost tender.
Guard your gold-light minutes. Nobody else will.
Love,