A New Yorker day in the life of

So today I left therapy feeling okay. Okay is fine, I'll happily take it.
It's noon. I'm downtown, close to City Hall, and everyone is wearing their work ids around their necks. I can smell the strong spices coming from the food trucks as I walk by the tens of construction workers on their lunch break.
I get into the subway, it's still noon. I'm starting to feel hungry, but I'm pleased to see that it's still noon and I'm up and going, on my way to school. I take the 6 train uptown, as I always do - I could walk to the platform with my eyes closed. I feel the almost unbearable heat as I walk down the stairs and say goodbye to the beautiful sunny day that is today, and hello to the Chinese homeless lady sitting there, as she always does, right next to the busy passersby.
I miss the train by very little. I know I'm not in a big hurry, so I don't hold the doors and let the train go, without me. The next one comes in right after, and I seat down. This train is always full of tourists, and I practice my morning game of trying to guess which ones are Brazilian. I see a couple and two friends, and, once again, I'm right. They get off two stops later, and a mom with a toddler comes in. I give them my seat.
Another mother and a daughter are lost, reading their subway map the whole way. The mother is not holding on the handrails and she's almost falling every time the train accelerates or breaks. A few stops later a guy starts talking to them in Italian, I understand "switch at Union Square". He's very relaxed, they talk and laugh. There's a girl sitting next to him, she is reading a book that has Zac Efron on the front cover. I start imagining what is it about, and why is she reading it. Is it because the movie is coming out soon and she wants to read the book first?
The mother with the toddler is talking to the child in a loud voice, and everyone hears it. She yells at him to "stop eating your cup", and starts telling him that she doesn't eat her cup, and no one in the train is eating their cups. The girl reading the book laughs out loud, and it gets a bit uncomfortable. The Italian tourists are watching the baby boy stomp his feet in the seat, and they smile gracefully at him. The train makes a turn and a lady falls on an Asian teenager. I almost fall, and I'm seated. Everybody laughs and looks at each other, now we are all talking to each other about the reckless conductor. A beautiful tanned girl walks in, and the relaxed Italian guy looks at her. After a while, he says something, and she smiles, barely looking at him. I get up - my stop is next. I look tired and grumpy, even though I'm not grumpy at all. That's how you are supposed to look if you are in New York City taking the train to work.
I get to my school and see all these different people walk through the glass doors - a muslim black guy opens the door for me. I always like watching the students, and how different the groups of undergrads are from where I went to undergraduate school. I hold the keys to the office I use, which my advisor kindly calls "the closet", and I like the feeling of having the keys to one space, even if it's just a tiny space, that belongs to New York. I feel like I belong to New York as well. I push the wrong button in the elevator, and wonder where my mind has been. I remember the day I washed my hair with shampoo three times during the shower, because I kept thinking it was the conditioner, and start worrying about my sanity a little bit.
I get to my "closet", turn on the computer, and start reading some of my thesis drafts. I miss writing other stuff in English, and I think it might be a good exercise to write about the simple train ride here. Instead of writing about how I'm noticing the little things, and feeling okay, and laughing with strangers in the subway, I just started narrating the first few hours of a regular day in New York City. So far, I think it will be just for the sake of getting it out, and I do not intend to post it. Who would like to read about a 20-minute subway ride, one just like all the others I take everyday?
I then remember that this is pretty normal to me, but it might not be to everybody else. I know that a day in New York for those who live in New York is just like that: the smell of coffee, a subway ride, construction, mothers, toddlers, heat (or freezing cold), food trucks, shy smiles in the train and some grumpy faces.

Pazes

Ficar leve, tarefa difícil.

Quantos livros, cursos e terapias são necessários para nos lembrar de parar, respirar, prestar atenção no nosso corpo, e ser?

Um sábado inteiro e alguns bons dólares depois, cá estou. Leve.

E assustada. O leve me assusta, o imediato me encharca, e eu rio de nervoso. De alegria, mas de nervoso também. E um pouco da minha cara - meu senso de humor anda bem leniente, rindo à toa de tropeços bestas na rua. Rindo só. Rindo chorando. Rindo de mim e dos outros, uma menina alta de casaco de pelúcia rosa entra no metrô, eu e minha vizinha nos olhamos de rabo de olho e rimos. Sem sacanagem, sem maldade, mas aquela moça riu comigo, e duas desconhecidas então compartilhavam o que logo virou uma crise de riso. Às vezes gargalhadas, muitas vezes inconvenientes. Meu Deus, eu estou rindo inconvenientemente.

Respiro entre uma gargalhada e outra e sinto o medo de novo. Eu reparo na leveza, desconheço essa leveza. E nada me assusta mais que o desconhecido.

Agora abro um sorriso desafiador. 

Todo dia tenho acordado da mesma maneira - de sono interrompido, às sete horas da manhã (então sete horas da manhã é igual em todo lugar?). Então me lembro dos meus passeios inconscientes, que essa semana, apesar dos seus caminhos diferentes, sempre terminam no mesmo lugar. Uma leveza estranha, um estranhamento gostoso. É que tenho visitado as mulheres que levaram em frente os relacionamentos que eu deixei para trás, cada noite uma diferente. Conversamos, rimos, e ficamos bem. E cada manhã o mesmo riso desaforado de estranhamento gostoso.

Faço as pazes comigo. E sinto o pequeno desconforto de amarras desatadas, leveza. Estou consciente dele.

Sorte que tenho meu bom humor pra seguir dando umas risadas desse andar desengonçado!

A Metáfora

Não sei se alguém já sacou, mas eu sou uma pessoa razoavelmente reflexiva, certo?

Então, eis que hoje no metrô, voltando pra casa, me peguei pensando em coisa besta. Dessas bem bestas mesmo, do tipo "gosto de queijo". Um pouco assustada com a simplicidade do pensamento, talvez inspirada por esse mesmo fato, começo a traçar uma metáfora. Dali a bem pouco já tinha uma nova teoria sobre a verdade da vida.

Já planejando vir contar esse pequeno-grande paralelo que havia recém traçado entre besteira e a metafísica, pensei num título: uma metáfora. Me lembrei que eu já havia sim narrado não só uma, duas, mas algumas metáforas por aqui. De repente, enquanto as portas se abriam e fechavam, eu ia de uptown a downtown traçando o que só consegui chamar de A Grande Metáfora. Meu jeito de entender a vida através de coisas palpáveis, naturalmente isentas de grandes significados ou raramente usadas para explicar fenômenos psicológicos, era também uma metáfora em si. Faço com as palavras, as bobas idéias soltas, o que faço com a vida. Enquadro, controlo, faço conexões. Afasto do sentido explícito. E só assim entendo as grandes verdades.

O mais engraçado é que eu nem me lembro o que era que eu estava pensando. E toda essa história aconteceu na mesma noite em que sento aqui para narrá-la.

A metáfora veio e foi. Um símbolo, um veículo.

Assistam aqui a palestra de James Geary no TED Talks sobre as metáforas.

A propósito, já se viciaram em TED Talks hoje? =)