Hats Off, New York

Hey, it's Sunday Morning.

After 25 years in suburbia, I've taken to riding the subway again.

Most days, old instincts survive and I read. But today, I looked up.

To my right: a young couple—maybe on a date, could be siblings. She wore animal print and high-heeled boots. He tried to sound confident. Almost pulled it off.

Across the car: three men in hats: Yankees, Mets, Atlanta. Atlanta? That's brave.

Next to Atlanta, a woman needling—slow, steady loops of yarn rising from the bag guarded between her feet.

Behind her, a Bumble ad: "Haley, 32. Looking for someone to bring calm to the chaos."

To my left, a woman playing solitaire on her phone: a game of one in a train of many. A quiet kind of connection.

And me—noticing. Not just riding, not just passing through, part of it. A quiet witness in motion.

For 25 years, I kept my head down in the suburbs—surviving, keeping safe, staying small.

Working from home, we blur the lines: laptops in the kitchen, Zoom calls in shorts, emails on the edge of the bed. Forgetting what it felt like to be part of the noise. To ride with strangers and feeling alive instead of alone.

Hats off, New York.

For the noise, the stillness. The date-or-sibling mystery. The misplaced baseball cap. The yarn and the yearning.

And the unspoken understanding that here, you can be cute, you can be loud, off-kilter, guarded.

Here, you get to be yourself.

Until next Sunday.