‘Gripping My Collar, I Began to Sprint South’

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Changing Trains

Dear Diary:

It was the morning after a snowstorm. The sky was pink, and the weather app warned of black ice and frostbite.

Entering the subway at Atlantic Avenue, I listened: 2, 3, 4 and 5, all delayed. I took the R to DeKalb.

When we pulled in, the train operator told us that there was a sick passenger and that we should transfer.

I got on the B. As I did, a woman started to exit for the R that I had just gotten off.

“Is that one good?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Better to stay put.”

She sat down, and I stood across from her. The train began to move and then shuddered to a halt. The train operator said there was an unauthorized person on the roadbed.

While we waited, the woman complimented a man nearby on his prayer-bead bracelets. She showed her wrist. She was wearing one too.

The train started moving again, bypassing the Grand Street station and creeping slowly into Broadway-Lafayette.

“I can see the station!” I exclaimed with glee to my new friends.

“It’s our city,” the woman said, standing to get off.

“We made it,” the man said, and then took a call in Italian on his phone.

As we got off, I said, “In bocca al lupo.” (It’s Italian for good luck, literally “into the wolf’s mouth.”)

He smiled.

“Brava,” he said. “Crepi.” (“May it die.”)

And we went our separate ways.

— Gwynneth Malin

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Penn Station

Dear Diary:

They never get Penn Station right,
though they try. Patches of old and shabby
still clash with new and renovated; bright
and spacious leads to dark and narrow.

But the people are beautiful! Stoic in rush
hour; in summer, sporting good-luck jerseys
for the Mets, while lawyers in navy suits
step aboard the Acela to D.C.

Two commuters miss the same train. They
vent to each other, trade travel horror stories,
begin to relax. He offers to buy her lunch.
They miss another train.

And in an impatient city, at an imperfect
station, love makes an unscheduled stop.

— Jimmy Roberts

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Traffic Jam No. 1

Dear Diary:

For 75 years, I lived within a six-block radius on the Upper East Side. I went to school there, got married, practiced law, raised three children and even watched my grandchildren grow up there.

After moving to New Jersey three years ago, my husband and I returned to the neighborhood recently for lunch. I instantly felt right at home.

At one point, traffic was backed up behind an empty ambulance on 88th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Horns were blaring. Drivers were fuming. Nothing was moving.

After what felt like a half-hour, I got out of the car and walked down the line telling the other drivers to back up and that when they got to Park Avenue, I would stop traffic to let them through.

As they backed up, I stood in the intersection with one hand raised to halt cars one way and the other waving those going in reverse toward me: “Stop! Go! Stop! Go!”

I was back in my element.

— Leila Rasamny Gorra

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Happy New Year!

Dear Diary:

It was New Year’s Eve 1998. A friend was having a party at a loft in Chelsea. I was single. At 12:05, I sneaked out to walk home alone. I still had a bottle of champagne in my bag.

Two friends were leaving at the same time. As we walked down the block, I looked up and saw what appeared to be a giant party in a loft.

As we stared up at the party, a stranger comes barreling outside and asked us what we were doing. We stared up again and then decided to go to the party.

We got buzzed in and when the door to the loft opened, we held out the bottle of champagne and yelled, “Happy New Year!”

It turned out to be a music executive’s dinner party, with family members and dogs and all kind of musicians.

Our little group proceeded to become the life of the party. One of my friends danced with Grandma and a dog.

Finally at about 2 a.m., as I stared into the refrigerator, the loft’s owner asked me who had invited us.

I quickly made an excuse, rounded up the others and off we went into the night.

Best New Year’s Eve ever!

— Debra Schutt

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Traffic Jam No. 2

Dear Diary:

I was running late. I was just stepping out of my hotel on the Upper East Side and had 15 minutes to meet a friend in Midtown. With no time for makeup, I must have looked a like a complete mess.

It was a bitterly cold afternoon. Rush-hour traffic had Fifth Avenue gridlocked, and my bus was nowhere in sight. Gripping my collar, I began to sprint south.

Luckily I was only a few minutes late in arriving, but my face was numb and red from the icy wind.

“What blush are you wearing?” my friend said when she saw me. “That shade looks amazing!”

I blinked.

“I think it’s called Fifth Avenue Traffic Jam!” I said.

— Levi Jiang

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee