Snow day adjacent

A commute deferred

Dear reader,

Last week, I made a mistake. Well, really, it was more of an oversight. I’d gone about my typical in-office-work-day morning routine, which for the most part is simple—I drag myself out of bed with enough time to make a coffee, sit and drink it, feed my cat, feed myself, slap on some sunscreen and brow gel, and hurriedly walk out the door. Oh, and clothes, I put those on too. Maybe poop if I’m lucky.

So I’d done all of these things, and miraculously on time too. It had just snowed in New York—our first real snow in over 700 days, so I was told, and therefore my first significant snowfall since moving here. The delicate, Instagrammable blanket of fluff had overnight transformed into a peril of ice. I knew it because when I looked out onto my fire escape, I saw crystallized columns hanging from the railing, sharp enough to kill. The temperature on my phone read 19 degrees.

I live in east Williamsburg, Brooklyn and I report to Midtown Manhattan three times a week for work. For those unfamiliar with the New York City subway system, this is not the most linear or relaxing commute. I am keen to romanticize everything in my life, and when I first started this job six months ago, I truly did just that. I thought of my commute as a cinematic journey to the epicenter of the work world, something I was grateful to be a part of.

The reality of the situation and the severity of the conditions were at first ignorable, existing outside my rose-tinted bubble, but the inevitable has occurred, my bubble has popped, and lately, perhaps exacerbated by the winter weather, my commute has been pretty dreadful.

It goes like this: I first head to the L, which takes about 8 minutes, speedwalking, where I board the grossly packed Manhattan-bound train. This train is so packed that not only do I never have a seat, but I sometimes don’t even have something to hold on to. I find stability in the human sandwich of fellow commuters, trying to maintain my wobbly equilibrium while being jerked back and forth.

I eventually arrive at 14th Street Union Square, a hellish place to be on a weekday morning. I mean, it is just pure chaos. I am never as aware of how many people live in New York as I am while walking up these flights of stairs. We look like a swarm of ants diligently filing into a hole in the wall.

My transfer to the uptown NQRW line offers a reprieve, and by that, I mean I have the luxury of personal space without someone’s breath playing with the tag on my neck, though I am often still seatless. Years later (about 30 minutes in total), I finally arrive at Herald Square, where I then have to walk another couple more blocks to the office, or shamefully jog if I am late.

But on this day, last week, as I was waiting to transfer, I opened Microsoft Teams and saw that, lo and behold, my boss had granted us permission to work from home due to weather conditions. She had sent the message at 8:00 p.m. the night prior, but I refuse to turn on Teams notifications, a boundary frowned upon by my employer. I now see why.

My initial reaction was annoyance, mostly at myself. I immediately sent like 3 “OMFG” texts. Here I was in a blazer braving my commute unnecessarily when I could have still been in my pajamas leisurely sipping coffee and meditating (I haven’t meditated in months, but now I could have been the perfect time to start again.)

I thought I’d just go home, get on the next subway headed in the opposite direction than the one I was on, and restart my day, but when I stepped out of the train, I had the desire to see the city dressed in snow. Before I could change my mind, I swiftly exited the platform.

Union Square is a peculiar area. It’s a very transient neighborhood to me, as in I am really only here to get on and off trains, but because it is my main passageway, I am here a lot, just never for long. I rarely go anywhere in this region aside from occasionally the big commercial spots (Target, Sephora, Trader Joe’s) and the holiday market in December.

That said, I don’t have any go-to spots here, and with not much time before my 9 a.m. meeting, I was scrabbling to find a place to sit and take the call.

Enter The Grey Dog.

The Grey Dog is a place I’d been before, albeit at a different location. It has Wi-Fi, bottomless coffee, a small-town feel, and tables with enough room to comfortably position my laptop and notebook—all of which are rarities in a city where elbow room is a hot commodity.

The waitress, I could tell, had been serving for years. She had that way about her—not just polite but genuinely personable. There was a visible rapport between her and two customers, her regulars, I assumed, and she didn’t write down orders, but I trusted she knew them. The telltale signs of years in the industry. It made me miss the serving game, which is, without a doubt, the most fun job I’ve ever had.

I miss the kitchen conversations and the good tippers and wearing an apron. I miss tucking a pen into my hair bun just to be whimsical. Or writing smiley faces on my favorite customer’s checks. Dare I say, I even miss rolling silverware and cutting lemons. I looked around and wondered who was fucking who at The Grey Dog. I wanted to know the restaurant tea, always piping hot.

I started to do the calculation. Has it really been almost three years since I last waited tables? I found myself thinking, how did I end up here, sitting behind a screen, saying things like "I'll circle back and follow up"? I miss experiencing life the way you do when you are carrying trays, memorizing specials, and telepathically communicating with your table’s needs. I miss my feet hurting as opposed to my neck and back.

Actually, lately, I find myself missing a lot about my life from that time, a time that when I was in it, I wanted so badly to get out of it. And don’t get me wrong, my life is good now, in fact, objectively better now than it was back then. But there are moments where I yearn for the simplicity I once considered boring. Moments where I wish I could tell my 22-year-old self to enjoy the limbo, enjoy living at Mom and Dad’s and not paying city rent, enjoy waitressing because one day you’ll be logging onto a Zoom call preparing to engage in small talk about the weather.

After my call, whilst applying a generous layer of butter and jam to my rye toast and contemplating the passage of time, the song Landslide by Fleetwood Mac came on—a song that always seems to surface when you need it most. I think it’s a universal experience for this song to cast a nostalgic spell on you as soon as you hear it. The bittersweetness of it always makes me feel better about getting older and changing. It’s like the feeling of a good cry bottled up in a song.

I let the waitress top off my coffee periodically just to keep it warm. Bundled and shivering, people came through the door, and I enjoyed witnessing their delight as they felt the heated air.

Sometimes the most New York moments happen like this, unfolding in the small subtleties of shared experiences. Where, on a crowded train, strangers coexisting momentarily over a common destination makes the chaos bearable. On a freezing morning, you find joy in being among the bundled-up company of other patrons seeking refuge. Where a song could remind you that we’re all just navigating life’s changes, trying to find our way.

I worked through the morning, and then I went home.

Sincerely,

Salena

The Grey Dog, January 16, 2024.