Come Together

This morning, I was on the second half of my commute. I take the 4,5 train now, and after a few weeks of testing transfer points and departure times, I’ve settled into a nice little groove. If I leave my house around 8:15, I can usually get to work around 9:05 or 9:10. I’m very routine-driven about some things, so I was pleased to finally adjust to a new commute schedule, hit my stride with the subway transfers, and figure out where I need to be on each train to maximize proximity to stairways. I find finding the best route to a new job is one of the things that makes me feel settled in, and this is really the first week I’ve been confident in where I need to be at what point in my commute.

The ride seemed pretty uneventful. I snagged a seat on the second stop, and settled in to my reading (St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves – great title, decent read). I tend to be oblivious to the rest of the train car when I’m reading, especially if I have a seat. I’m pretty much immune to the shufflings and goings on of the other passengers, unless someone’s particularly loud or smelly (this means you, stank armpit guy from yesterday!).

We were somewhere between Chambers and 14th Street when all of a sudden, there was a commotion, and a tall man with long dreadlocks was shaking on the floor. His seizure couldn’t have lasted more than 15 or 30 seconds, but it was terrifying. As he was shaking, people were clearing away to make room for him. I put my handbag under his head to stop it banging on the floor, and passengers gathered around to see what they could do, how they could help.

The man stopped shaking, and came to groggily. “What happened?” he blinked. A small Asian woman was crouched by his side. “You had a seizure,” she told him. People started chorusing in, “Are you OK?” “Can we do anything?” A little fat lady halfway down the car called, “I have some water,” and hands reached out to pass the bottle to the stricken man. He took it, and more hands reached out to help him up and into a seat.

The small Asian woman clearly had some kind of medical training, as she started asking him about his medical history, if he’d had seizures before, if he’d eaten anything yet, where he was going when he got off the train. He said he was headed to the VA Hospital, which was at the 14th Street stop anyway.

A group of 4 or 5 people surrounded the man and helped him make his way off the train, and as we pulled out of the station, the small Asian lady was supporting the small of his back up the stairs. I would bet she went with him all the way to the hospital.

There were no life-saving heroics on my train this morning, just people acting decently towards someone in trouble. It was nice to see, and a pleasant reminder that I wish had stuck when, walking out of my office for lunch, I got stuck behind a slow-moving bleached blond in a teeny mini skirt and 5 inch heels and crankily thought, “whore."

So much for my touchy-feelies.

Sonic Youth

In high school, I had a progressive Honors and AP English teacher, who taught us how to write, and think, like adults, and also the proper way to eat salad. Mrs. Condon was not universally beloved, but those who did love her loved her with the passion of religious converts; her words were doctrine, and to this day I find myself quoting her or self-editing my work with her hawk-eyed, zero-bullshit-tolerance approach.

As she was a progressive teacher, we never had to suffer the indignity of by-the-numbers, question-response regurgitative assignments. Oh, no. Mrs. Condon wanted our malleable little minds to think for ourselves, to take in information and synthesize it in such a way as we’d be served by it long after our standardized testing days were in the murky past.

To this end, our assignments were always unique. She had a very strict system for writing papers; there were several formats which needed to be followed. Deviation from the correct format resulted in a failing grade, regardless of the quality of the writing. I deviated once, I got a D, and I learned my lesson. The lesson was discipline, and it stuck. I loathed her for the first semester I had her, in my sophomore year. Finally what she was trying to do sunk in, and by my senior year, we’d often have lunch together, where I’d sit by her desk and try and absorb her fierce sense of reason, logic, and authority.

Our untraditional assignments frequently included analyses of art and music in conjunction with whatever text we were working on at the time. On in-class writing days, we’d bring in our walkmans, pop in our choice of music, and start writing. The classroom was silent, save for the scurry of pen on paper.

On one such day, a classmate leaned over to me, headphones in, and yelped, “Liz! Do you have an extra pen?” in what she clearly thought was a normal volume, but was actually incredibly loud. Everyone jumped, then started laughing. I learned that day that what sounds normal to you, when you’re wearing headphones, is probably closer to a shriek.

Cut to my subway ride home on Friday. The past week had been outrageously stressful, and I just wanted a seat, some peace and quiet, and a filthy dirty Stoli martini (not necessarily in that order.) I snagged a seat at 34th, by the sweet grace of Jebus, even though it was next to a leaning sleeper and a man of larger than average girth. Beggars can’t be choosers, so I inserted myself into the middle, opened up my New Yorker, and settled in for the ride home.

The leaning sleeper leaned and slept, and the man of larger than average girth rustled around in his bag for his iPod headphones. I tucked my elbows in and picked up the opening brass strains of “Can’t Take That Away From Me” leaking from the big guy’s headphones.

All right, whatever – it’s a little loud, but I’m really into the fiction piece. Then it starts up: Dude, oblivious to where he is, starts yowling along to his music. Pitch? Not so much. Volume? Check! He is loud, he is proud, he’s not so solid on all the lyrics. But, bless him, that big band is blasting in his ears, and he’s probably sure he’s humming just under his breath, not belting it out louder that Old Blue Eyes. People’s heads are swiveling to take him in, and his eyes are closed, so he’s clueless that not everyone is thrilled about this spontaneous concert.

We went through most of the damn album – “Luck Be a Lady,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “A Very Good Year,” and homeslice howled through them all.

The learning and takeaway: your headphones do not give you sonic immunity. Tone it down, and save it for the shower, not my Friday subway ride home.