The Current

I've been doing the commuter bustle for a few weeks now, yet today I felt strangely out of context. Typically I roll into Grand Central, buy a newspaper, fetch my coffee and head directly for the Times Square shuttle. I guess you could say I'm part of the flow, a piece of sediment caught in the current of a raging river. I know where I need to go yet the "rush" of rush hour seems to carry me there. It's perfectly natural in the urban ecosystem we dive into each day. But not today. Today, I caught the early train. I was never a fan of the Starbucks in my wing of Grand Central (the people pushy, the seating limited) but there was rumor to be another; through the main concourse and left toward Lexington Passage - a duplicate. And because I had this residue of time on my hands, I decided to explore the "other" Starbucks. Maybe it was my extreme lack of sleep the night before, or possibly the absence of my earphones, or simply the genuine overflow of traffic, but this morning I felt like I was drowning. My ears were absorbing an extremity of peculiar sound effects [ the heels of a woman's shoe, the waggle of a key chain, the brush of a pant leg]. They were amplified into my eardrum, as if to announce their passing presence. Having no urgency in my swagger, I felt subjugated by the masses. And for the first time ever, I was overwhlemed by New York.

It wasn't so much being overwhelmed by the furious momentum or sheer volume - I was well adapted to that. It was more of an astounding sense of the ordinary. Nobody speaking to one another. Everyone gliding into and out of turnstyles. Indistinguishable outfits and oblivious facial expressions. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. It had all accumulated into this one consistant flow, and I was struggling to swim against the current. A few more steps and I hit the surface; breathing again. It was only a momentary lapse, but it was enough for me. I know I'm not invinsible. It's okay to be caught in the current sometimes, it makes the world keep spinning I suppose.

After a few sips of my soy latte, I was grounded again. I even finished a round of sudoku.