The F train at 7AM is its own little country.
I catch it at Carroll Street, half-asleep, hair still damp, one earbud in because the other died sometime in 2024 and I refuse to acknowledge it. There's a man who does the crossword in pen every single morning. I respect his confidence more than I respect most people's life decisions.
My F train morning routine has become the closest thing I have to prayer. Before I descend, I stop at the Bangladeshi cart on Smith Street where uncle makes me an iced chai without asking. He calls me beta. In a city of eight million strangers, that one word holds me together more than it should.
The train rattles under the river and I always think the same thing my Ba used to say — that you should never start a journey angry. So I don't. I let the morning be slow even when the F train is not.
By the time we hit Midtown the car is packed. I never get a seat. I've made my peace with standing, one hand on the pole, the other clutching my chai like it's the last warm thing on earth.
There's a teenage girl who gets on at Jay Street with a cello bigger than her whole body. Every day she wedges it between her knees and closes her eyes. I want to tell her she's already braver than I was at her age, dragging dreams that don't fit through turnstiles.
The F train morning routine isn't glamorous. It smells like wet umbrellas and someone's egg sandwich. But there's something holy about a thousand people choosing to show up to their lives, again, on a Tuesday.
I used to think I'd hate the commute. Back in Ahmedabad I'd dreamed of yellow cabs and skylines, not standing armpit-to-armpit under the East River. But the cabs are a scam and the subway is where I actually live.
We surface at 42nd Street. The cello girl heads one way, I head another. Uncle's chai is gone by then, ice melted into nothing.
The city is loud. I am ready anyway.
Tell me what holds your mornings together.
Love,