Alright, I had some illusions surrounding the train. It was more glamorous than the bus, more economical than flying. I thought it would be romantic—a relic of a bygone era, like in the old black and white movies—jazz musicians and men in fedoras and sensible women reading fashion magazines. It made me think of words like ‘rendezvous’ and ‘intrigue.’ What I found instead was a platoon of iPods at full volume, huge men who should have been required to pay for two tickets, and blatantly breastfeeding women. It brought to mind phrases like ‘get me out of here’ and very specific and very attainable thoughts of homicide.
In this fantasy version of moving to New York that I had in my mind, I would arrive at the station and swing around my bags and make bold declarations like, “HERE I AM, NEW YORK!” or “I HAVE ARRIVED!” I would be wearing a wide-brimmed hat. The closest thing I have to the visual in my mind is this scene from the 1997 feature film Titanic:
My actual arrival in New York, hatless and with bags packed so full they could hardly be carried effectively, much less swung around, actually resembled more closely another scene from that movie about the fated ocean liner:
[It should be noted here that I do not own either of those images. Twentieth Century-Fox does. I don’t own anything. I don’t even officially own my IKEA bed until I pay off my credit card balance, which looks like it might happen sometime between awhile from now and never.]
I found myself in Penn Station with my four bags of varying shapes and weights that made it virtually impossible for me to carry all of them myself. Whereas a more conscientious person would have ensured that their bags fit together like Tetris blocks, able to be stacked and interlocked and perfect, my bags looked like they had been stolen from other travelers—a bright blue duffel bag [sans shoulder strap], an overstuffed American Tourister [complete with 1 ¾ wheels], an orange, hard-shelled suitcase from the 1980s or before and a Swiss Army backpack [although I have never been hiking in my life].
I had a brief nightmare, standing at baggage claim, of trying to navigate my cargo and myself to Brooklyn alone. I exhausted all of the options I could think of—from hiring that guy who was bathing himself in the bathroom sink to help me carry them, to finding the closest post office and shipping a few to my new address—and finally, in the fever dream induced by the sixteen hour train ride combined with the fact that it was the hottest day that New York would see in September [keep this fact in mind. It will be helpful to know later], I reached the conclusion that it actually made the most sense for me to step back, assess the contents of each bag, decide which I valued least and just leave it there. Sacrifice it to the gods of Penn Station. This is the frame of mind I was operating within at this point.
Luckily, it never came to that. Gregg—the guy that I was dating at the time and who, on this occasion, saved at least my material life—met me at the station and we rode the escalator out of the belly of Penn Station and into the light.
When trying to catch a cab from Penn Station to Brooklyn, I’ve learned that what cab drivers will do is laugh. And laugh. And keep laughing. And drive away. Laughing. So we braved the subway, pinned down by the luggage that is my life [or, my life edited for New York purposes].
This is the part where it comes in handy to remember that this day was the hottest September day in New York this year.
There is only one word and it is: sweaty. Here we are, two relatively attractive, certainly clean-ish looking guys dripping in sweat. Sweat running down our faces; sweat pooling at our feet. You get the picture. We were certifiably the two most disgusting people on that train. And there were homeless people on that train.
We arrived at my apartment to find that the lights didn’t work and the toilet wouldn’t flush. Gregg made a comment about The Money Pit and laughed and I crumpled to the living room floor and cried. I slept right there on the floor that night; I had yet to brave the Red Hook IKEA to find a bed I could almost afford and all of the furniture had left with the roommate I was replacing. It might sound ridiculous, and maybe it is, but I hadn’t really thought of what I would do once I got here, beyond the answers I would give to family members and acquaintances, full of “hitting the ground running on the job search” and other overused, overconfident metaphors.
Now, a month into my new city, reflecting for the sake of this blog, and with the photo of Leo and Kate struggling against the water staring back at me from my computer desktop, I wonder if that photo may not serve as some sort of overused and perhaps overconfident metaphor itself. It has been a month of days spent applying to jobs that I always seem to be over- or under-qualified for, sending my resume and cover letters out into what usually feels like a gaping black hole, days of being lonelier than I have ever been, feeling so far away from everything, days of fearing I might go the way of Emily Dickinson [in terms of reclusiveness, not poetic renown], things ending with Gregg, phone calls home that have to be filled with good news even if there isn’t any.
And maybe [okay, certainly] this photo has to be looked out completely out of the context of the movie as a whole—Spoiler alert: Celine Dion sings. Kate Winslet gets naked. Leo dies. Old Kate Winslet throws the necklace in the water at the end—but there have been many times during this first month where life has felt like that: water up to my neck and rising, but I’m still kicking like hell. Leo dies, Kate lives. I’ll take a 50% chance of survival over nothing. Maybe one day I’ll go under, but it hasn’t happened yet.
I don’t know if that is the moral of this story. I don’t know if there is a moral to this story. What I do know is the next morning, after that first night spent on the floor, without any logical reason, the toilet decided to flush and the lights came back on.
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