The G train has no chill in August. Literally. The AC in my car gave up somewhere around Nassau Avenue, and by Greenpoint Avenue we were all just quietly marinating.
Here's the thing about a broken AC on the G train commute: it breaks something else too. The pretending.
Usually New Yorkers stand there like statues, earbuds in, eyes forward, everyone performing that we-are-not-touching-even-though-we-are-touching thing. But when it's 91 degrees and the car smells like a locker room and someone's iced coffee is sweating onto the floor, all of that dissolves.
A woman next to me pulled a paper fan out of her tote and started fanning not just herself but me too, without a word. A guy near the door offered everyone gum like it was going to help. It did not. It helped anyway.
I had a cardigan in my bag because my office runs its AC like it's trying to preserve a corpse, and I looked at that cardigan and genuinely laughed out loud. The audacity of past-Pooja, packing for a different climate.
My mom always says garmi makes people honest. Back home in Ahmedabad, the heat would flatten everyone into the same mood by 2pm — cranky, sweaty, giggly, generous. I felt that on the G train commute this week. Same flattening. Same honesty.
We crawled between stations. The conductor apologized twice, which for the G train is basically a love letter. Nobody groaned. We'd all made peace.
By the time I climbed up into the Greenpoint sun, my hair was a situation and my mascara had staged a small protest. But I felt weirdly held. Like the whole car had agreed to survive together.
That's the secret of the G train commute in August. It's terrible, and the terribleness makes strangers kind.
Some days the city softens you by being unbearable.
Love,