Up is down

If you believe in the existence of parallel universes, an infinite number branching off from this one with every decision that we make, every moment and action, then there’s at least one universe out there with a version of me who cracked his head open running down the stairs to catch his evening train.

It very nearly was me, in this universe, and I’m not sure I’ll ever really know how close I came to tripping down those stairs, plummeting to a bloodied rest below, as I raced to get aboard the train that, by all rights, should have left the station before I even felt myself tip forward, much less regained my balance and reached the platform. I was racing to make the 4:54 train, and I didn’t arrive at Penn Station until 4:54, and it’s only thanks to crowds of people apparently having done the same and also trying to squeeze aboard that the doors were still open.

So I didn’t get a seat, but I also didn’t die, so that’s a plus.

I was only running so late because my brain sort of hiccuped on the subway commute previous to that. Somehow, even after I’d successfully managed to take the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, I got it in my head to get aboard a train headed uptown, for some bizarre reason thinking, at least until I was safely locked inside the car, that this would take me to Penn Station. Times Square is at 42nd Street, and Penn Station is at 34th Street. Even a non-New York native could tell you that 34 is down from 42. I walked across the street and hopped aboard the next downtown train.

I’d like to think I am not usually this stupid, but I do have an almost impressively awful sense of direction. And for almost seven years, I’ve had a commute that consisted of a single train, no connections, and a short walk…which, in the space of a week, has become three trains each way, and nearly all my walking done underground in the mad rush hour of the New York Subway.

I’m thinking tomorrow, depending on the weather, I may just take the morning train to Penn Station and walk from there. I’m not convinced taking the subway in from Queens is saving me any time, just walking.

Meanwhile, I’m still getting used to new office and environs, figuring out what’s within easier walking distance now, what stores and restaurants are situated nearby. It’s funny, in a lot of other places, a move that’s no more than a ten-minute walk away wouldn’t be so discombobulating; it probably wouldn’t put you, for instance, in a different zip code, which our move did, and it wouldn’t be like moving to an entirely different neighborhood. (Not that midtown Manhattan really has neighborhoods.) Look at where you work now, then think about moving to another building you can walk to in ten minutes. Would you feel lost? Would you be confused about where you could go to eat lunch? That’s sort of what’s happened to us.

I have no doubt we’ll all grow accustomed to it. When I think that we’ve only been in the new office now a week… It seems like much longer.