"I am in the 7th grade!" I stomped my foot and yelled from my bedroom. <insert laugh track>
"I don't want you going on the train alone!" My mom yelled back from the kitchen. I walked back to the kitchen. "I am 13 stop treating me like a baby, I am not scared of the trains." My frustration started to mount.
"We will all go your sisters would also love to see the Frick Collection." And just like that Ace I needed from the deck of cards shuffled by the fickle hand of fate appeared. You want us to all go, after what happened with S two months I ago? I pointed my younger sister S for emphasis who looked on innocently unaware of any conflict. My mother looked at S, and then I played the ace of clubs, "you know how C gets when she has to walk to much."
I could tell my mom was reliving the nightmares of a few months earlier we had all gone down to Herald Square and we had lost S. Technically S was not lost she was following us as we searched for her. <insert hysterical laugh track> All this while baby C was adamant about not wanting to walk because she was tired.
My mom knew I had won that round. "You can go with but only if you take Gabby with you." Not a victory or a loss in my book. Great.
Saturday finally rolled around, it was a bitterly cold Winter morning. I had lost my gloves yet again, before my mother could ask I dashed out the house. I had met Gabby 3 years earlier, she had been placed in our classroom mid-year.
From the moment I met her I felt like she was one of my sisters, I already had 3 one more would only make it even. Gabby commanded attention, her doe eyes, languid, unhurried movements from years of ballet had given her something that can only develop after teen years. Gabby had grace, before I even understood the concept of grace. Even when we did our NYC walking hers was different, she was like a gazelle fast, sleek and graceful. And as if to add insult to injury she could walk in this fashion while carrying her school and ballet gear.
The wind was so viciously cruel that I was ready to quit as soon as possible, which was just as well Gabby had her ballet recital. I decided, to skip her recital as I had a book back in my warm cozy bedroom calling my name.
I jumped on the train and found a seat, I almost started to cry, the train had no heat. I couldn't shove my hands in my pockets because people were sitting on either side of me. My red, raw hands hummed and throbbed with pain. The pain became more unbearable. In an effort to pretend it wasn't real I became rigid, I slowed my breathing. I was cold therefore I would become a statue like the ones I just saw at the Frick collection. I didn't need to move my eyes to my Swatch watch, I knew the train ride would take 45 minutes if no delays occurred.
The pain in my hands increased, the train car was so cold I could see my breath. I started to sweat it I was so cold. I swore that I would never lose my gloves again and I would jump under the covers as soon as I got home.
My thoughts raced, my misery only increased with each passing minute but I did not dare move for fear that my hands would fall off.
And then I felt something different, the urge to move was strong, I shifted my eyes to the left. At first all I saw was a bent head close to a pad, my brain was pre-occupied with the pain in my hands. He looked up, no he didn't look, he looked at my hands his head bent lower and his hands worked faster.
He was sketching my hand, still not moving I looked down. My hands were wind chapped, cracked, red, raw and swollen. I watched him, as he continued to sketch, soon I forgot my hands. I wanted to see his sketch, now instead of burning pain I had burning curiosity to see what he had captured.
We were only four stops away, my pain had long since been forgotten, just as I was about to contrive a reason to get up and look at the sketch his head popped up but this time he remembered he was inside of a train, he leaped up, sketch pad still open so I could catch a brief glance of his charcoal drawing. My hands!
The doors closed he was gone. Only three stops to go. I sat back in my seat the train was nearly empty I could put my hands in my pocket if I wanted. I didn't know what to think he had sketched my hands feverishly but my hands looked horrendous. I was baffled, art created beauty, no beauty could be found in my hands at the moment. I still did not dare move them as they hurt so much.
On four additional occasions over my train riding, my hands were sketched by art students. I was always baffled, was it because I stood still? Was it something about my hands? I would examine them closely after each encounter.
Cynically after my last encounter I decided that in the universe of things my hands had been destined to be sketched by the random powers of fate and time.
Tonight I was on G+ and as is the norm, I let the stream of pictures, stories, wash over me. And as the posts flowed I realized that the more things change the more they stay the same.
It wasn't to long ago that people would bring a boom box on the train, now they dig out their cellphones and blast their tunes. (FYI, if you are ever on a train with someone who just got back from Louisiana festival just change cars, listening to more than 30 minutes of Zydeco will burn your brains and ears.)
We jump on the train and we take furtive pictures of each other. I remember when we sketched each other. We sit with our laptops tapping out stories, I remember when people would pull out a batter notebook and in barely legible penmanship write out scenes and dialogues.
I look at G+ and I realize that technology has given me the innocence I thought was scared off by old cynicism.
How is it possible that technology with its cold, shiny, plastic, buttons has allowed me to view the world with wonder?
I don't know.
