The first cold morning on the 1 train snuck up on me like an aunty at a wedding who remembers exactly how thin you used to be.
I walked onto the 137th Street platform in a linen shirt, still living in July inside my head, and the wind came up the stairs and slapped me fully awake. Fifty degrees. Maybe forty-nine. My arms had opinions.
Everyone on the platform had that same face. The face of people who did not check the weather. We stood there, collectively betrayed, a little community of the underdressed.
Inside the train it was warmer, which is the one good thing I will say about the MTA all season. A man had a thermos of chai — actual chai, I could smell the elaichi — and I nearly asked him to marry me or at least share.
This is the thing about the first cold morning on the 1 train. It's not really about the cold. It's the reminder that time moved while I wasn't watching. That I've now been in this city long enough to know the seasons by which subway line feels most exposed. (The 1 is exposed. The elevated stops are brutal little wind tunnels.)
I got off at 66th to grab coffee before work and the barista said, "Sweater weather finally," like it was a gift and not an ambush. I decided to believe her.
By the time I hit the office my hands had thawed and I'd made peace with autumn. There's something clean about it. Ahmedabad never really did cold, not like this, not the kind that asks you to layer and plan and become a slightly more organized person.
So I'm accepting the assignment. Boots are coming out of the closet. The one good coat is getting dry-cleaned. And tomorrow, I swear, I will check the weather like an adult.
But I probably won't. See you on the platform, shivering, together.
Love,