The first cold morning on the J train arrived without warning on Thursday. One day it was 70 and I was sweating through my linen shirt in DUMBO. The next, I stepped out of my building in Bushwick and the air had teeth.
I was wearing ankle socks. I want that on the record. Ankle socks, in October, like a woman who learned nothing from last year.
The J train platform at Myrtle-Broadway was full of people doing the same little dance I was doing — hands jammed in pockets, shoulders up by the ears, everyone pretending we weren't all caught off guard by a season we knew was coming.
There's a specific NYC October morning energy I'd forgotten about. The light goes gold and slanted. The woman selling churros near the turnstile had switched to hot coffee overnight, like she got a memo the rest of us missed.
I love the first cold morning on the J train more than I love most things. It's the one commute of the year where everyone on the platform is united in mild suffering, and there's something very Ahmedabad about that — my mother always said shared discomfort is how you know you're among your people.
I pressed my face to the window as we went above ground past Marcy. The sky over the East River was that flat grey that makes Manhattan look like a black-and-white film. I thought about how my first October here I cried on this exact train because I missed the heat of home.
Three years later I was just annoyed about my socks. Progress, I think.
By the time we hit the bridge I'd made peace with it. Cold ears, warm coffee, the whole car swaying together. I texted my roommate: it's sweater season, I'm never taking the socks thing lightly again.
She replied with a single screenshot of the weather. 41 degrees. Betrayal.
Tomorrow I'll wear the wool ones. Tomorrow I'll be ready. The first cold morning on the J train only catches you once a year, and this year it got me good.
Dress your ankles, my loves. They deserve better than I gave mine.
Love,