– Jumping Someone Else’s Train, The Cure

Perspective can change everything; running straight line the countryside is truly bucolic, but when the train jerks ‘round a turn you find that the rolling hills hide a shanty town.  Which side of the tracks your business is living on can be a fluid line. One month you are in the middle of richly appointed houses with green lawns and blooming gardens, the next morning it is in a freight yard of dinged cars and grimy out buildings.

How could this happen?  Perhaps you rode the line too far without checking; all lines end somewhere and these places look nothing like they do on Sodor.  Anyone who has ‘ridden the rails’ will tell you that the first rules -(after keep away from the bulls)- are to keep an eye on where the train is heading and to be wary of junctions.

Are you still riding the same tracks only because you are unsure of what  throwing the switch yourself will mean? The economy is volatile as all get out and experts predict years more of slow climbs up and lurching dips and stops; it is pretty scary and it is tempting to simply put one’s head down and keep on the current line.

Fear is the initial response of first time riders of the NYC subway system, a peculiar reputation which has persisted.  Contrary to popular belief, the subways are not a caravan of absolute acerbic strangers and look nothing like (well, not since the early 90s) the way they are depicted in the Kurt Russel vehicle ‘Escape From New York’.  If you ride the subway with anything resembling a regular schedule you start to notice familiar faces, a recurring cast.  In many ways these folks come to feel a bit like family, only ten times removed.  Riding on a daily basis begins to become like a micro reality show, one witnesses the rise and fall and rise of peoples lives and situation.  The cycles play out as a change in style, the new loves pressed tight taking the morning train together for the first time or the late night tear smeared mascara. It is a daily one-act play drawn out over the station stops.

Shakespeare à la the third rail.

I have recently had the opportunity to ride the subway again after over ten years of commuting with a car over a bridge and through the woods.

I lived and worked in NYC for just under 20 years mostly traveling  the east-side lines of the 4, 5, 6 and for a short stint, the F outta of Park Slope. Even so, as with all things in the city, a week’s ride can involve some time on nearly any line.

Muscle memory is a funny thing, while it had been too many years since I last rode, without really thinking about it I made my way to the 42nd street shuttle and across town to catch the Q to Long Island City. What awoke me from the autopilot path I was on was the fact that when I rode the trains (all those years ago), the Q did not exist.  I was lost momentarily and had to check the station map, twice, before I was confident that this was where I got on again.  My body took me there but my brain was still on the old tracks.

I found myself looking for a familiar face, a strong desire to bump into an old acquaintance who had been too long living on the Island of Lost Friends. I wanted stability and a known frame of reference. It just felt weird and I had that panic of the unknown and my shoes felt glued to the floor. (I actually let a Q train come and go before finally screwing up my courage). Traveling the first few stops was, admittedly, a bit disquieting – but once we hit 57th and Lex, I found the train’s  rhythm and made its frequency a harmonic of my own.

Sometimes you just gotta throw the switch, move to the new tracks. You never know, you might just find that this is the train you were looking for all along.