willow

Willow took the metro everyday precisely forty-three minutes before she had to be at work. This would give her enough time to walk slowly from the station towards work, looking up at the sky. She worked in a shop that sold soap, and she worked whenever the soap-maker wanted. Willow declared loud and proud to whoever would listen that this job suited her perfectly. She got to smell all day, talk to strangers and keep odd hours. Her favourite soap is a lime and cedar concoction, that makes her feel alive. She could sell it to anyone out of pure love (and she does). 

What she likes the most, what she really cherishes and what she keeps for herself, is riding the metro. When her friends complain about the long lines, the heat, the smell, the cramped spaces at rush hour, she nods along. She doesn’t engage but she doesn’t reveal how she truly feels. Because she is superstitious and believes that if she shares her love, the magic will disappear. (She doesn’t yet know that sharing only amplifies the magic). 

On Monday mornings, at six-forty-two in the morning on the Red Line, she witnesses the start of rush hour. Willow sits quietly as the whole city wakes up and gets ready for Monday and for Work. She knows that by seven, the cars will start to fill up slowly. With people half asleep (are they ever really awake?), holding on to coffee mugs and newspapers. People heading to jobs they love, people heading to jobs they hate, people coming home from night shifts. The energy on Monday mornings is one of Duty and Wishing - wishing that the Weekend didn’t have to end and that Reality didn’t have to set in (as if Weekends lived outside of Reality).

Sometimes on Thursdays, Willow will hit prime time rush hour on the way home at five-thirty-four. The coming and going washes over the station, like a waterfall you can never stop. There is a rush in everyones step, a rush to get home and to get fed and to get out of Work. She walks slowly, taking the flow of the people wherever it takes her (she often misses two trains because of this). Eventually, she’ll make her way to the right platform, onto the right train and into the right car. She will stand, close to everyone else, swaying in time with them and the train. She loves to close her eyes and feel the movement in her limbs and marvel at the fact that they know exactly how to keep her upright and adjust her balance. She never listens to any music, she loves to listen to the bits of conversations she can hear, the music blaring through someone else’s headphones, the Woman announcing the stops. Willow is constantly amazed that so many people can be so quiet, can force themselves to whisper, are forced to respect each others tolerance of Quiet. The silence is loud and deafening, the silence is imposed and oppressing, the silence is always there, even when people whisper. During rush hour, she barely has space to breathe, to move. The car is full, people pressed up against the doors, the windows, holding on to the handrails or holding on to each other. Being so close to people without knowing them is sharing a kind of raw intimacy. Willow thinks it is strange to be face to face with someone and not speak, as if they weren’t experiencing the same thing. 

If she closes up the shop on Sundays, she will take the time to walk over to the metro door that will let her off at exactly at the right part of the platform where the stairs are. On Sundays, the people are relaxed and sleepy. Willow likes to sit by the window and look at how the lights and colours blur as the metro races by. She sometimes stands on the platform and lets the wind from the cars wash over her and through her hair. She feels like this is where her soul gets clean, gets moved and where she is most linked to the whole ecosystem of the city. She knows every person in this city has felt that gush of wind underground, and she wonders if they feel it shift their inner workings. Does it remind them of storms? Of the kind of wind that’s so strong it will blow you off your feet? Of the moment when as a kid you would ride the swing and the whole world would stop and converge? 

In the summer, on Fridays, the metro is full of people glowing and excited. The world seems open to them, the night is open to them, all they have to do is get on the Yellow Line and get off six stops later and head out into the warm summer night. She loves it when couples hold hands, and head out blissfully under a setting sun, heading into the Big City with love in their hands. Willow notices that on these nights, the Quiet is light and happy. She loves it when the stop near the Opera House has a platform full of older men and women in their best suits, holding space for Theatre and chatting about the Art they have just lived through in a big room filled with strangers. At the station near the Park, the teenagers get off with large bags, heading out into the shadows to meet their own shadows. These summer nights are full of hope, lust, love, sweat and Art.The heat from the metro is unbearable, glistening everyones upper lip and sweating into Perfect Outfits. And yet, this is when the city blooms, underground and humid.

During the winter, the same heat exists, in between down coats and layers of scarves. Bundled up outside, only to immediately swelter inside. But, this is unbearable without the lightness of summer. This is heat needed to survive the winter, to survive the cycle of seasons that asks us to slow down. This heat is what allows us to keep the unnatural pace all year round. When Willow waits for the metro on Tuesday afternoons, she thinks of the soap she is going to make to reflect the crisp smell of the ice cold air. On days like this, she revels in the moment when she leaves the station and the cold takes her breath away.