You are formidable, a warrior and a champion. You have made parts unknown available to so many individuals. You have made so many commutes possible and affordable. You have witnessed births, deaths, and sharks. 

I love you because when I walk into your tunnels I feel your stifling warmth and I breathe an unfresh sigh of relief. In the peaceful, lonely, violent, smelly, loud togetherness, you host us all at your table. 

I used to complain about you, as everyone does. I wish I could take back all of the times I cursed you under my breath, and blamed lateness on you. I wish I could take you to work every day again: over the river, under the skyscrapers. I would find my favorite spot, standing in the doorway, observing everyone and my own reflection. In the morning, I would steel myself for the day. In the evening, I would wipe it away with the confusing, beautiful patched cloth of humanity. You made it possible.

I moved away, and so, I miss you. Everything looks better in nostalgia’s rosy glow. 

In a New York day, you encounter so many kinds of people. You are caught in a deluge of diversity, smacked by your own shortcominged smallness. On the subway, you’re moving with everyone. You’re going somewhere. You’re dancing. 

You are seen. 

Not so elsewhere. In London, people politely divert their eyes. In Paris, you must turn a handle to exit the car (who is so nimble?). In D.C., vaulted ceilings ask for your reverence. In San Francisco, wedged between various wheeled vehicles, you are shoved into darkness. I do not know much about Seoul, but from what I hear, everything works too perfectly.

In New York, you can decipher, in many foreign tongues, the excitement at seeing Times Square for the first time. You can fall in love with a stranger who will break your heart over the course of five stops. You can watch a man eat a box of soggy french fries on the train in sloppy, open-mouthed bites while everyone looks on in disgust, except the unfazed grandmother next to him.

You can have it all in the silver bassinet that is so easy to doze in. It can be sinister, in the way that participating in the world always is. In the subway you are both within and without the world, suspended somewhere between.

The new subway opened on a holiday. It's still shiny but it will soon become a piece of ordinary days, a drab, unquestioned thing. It, like you, will endure so many journeys that matter. 

Thank you,
Melanie