Small thing. Tuesday. Zoya and I were catching the L at Bedford after dinner and my MetroCard did the thing — swipe again at this turnstile — three times in a row. Classic.
Zoya was already through. And she stopped. Turned around. Waited. Didn't sigh, didn't do the little impatient shift. Just stood on the other side making a face at me until I finally got through and we both laughed.
I've been thinking about it since. The friend who waits at the turnstile.
Because New York teaches you to walk fast. To not wait. The whole city moves like it's late for something, and you learn to move that way too or you get swallowed. And somewhere in that, waiting for someone becomes almost radical.
When I first moved here I didn't have a Zoya. I had a job and a sublet and a lot of very polite acquaintances. I'd walk to the train alone and eat alone and it was fine, it was fine, I kept saying fine like it was a spell.
The friend who waits at the turnstile is the whole difference. Not grand gestures. Not the airport pickups, though those matter too. It's the small refusal to leave you behind. The turning around.
Zoya's from Karachi and I'm from Ahmedabad and we joke that our grandmothers would've had beef about the border but we found each other in Brooklyn eating the same childhood snacks and crying about the same songs. There's a shorthand there. A home-shaped thing.
There's a line I always think of, from an old Hindi film, something like — the people who are yours will find a way to stay. I'm butchering it. But that's the idea.
Adult friendship is just people choosing to keep showing up when it would be easier not to. When there's no obligation, no roommate situation, no proximity forcing it. Just choosing.
So here's to the friend who waits at the turnstile. Who doesn't walk ahead. Who makes a face at you through the bars until you catch up.
Be that friend. And tell the ones who are that to you.
Love,