The Subway Soundtrack

Now that the holidays are over and everyone has been back to work for a few weeks, I am starting to get a good feel for my commute. I take a bus across the bridge from Jersey, and then I take the 2 train all the way to the end of the line. Since the really large crowds of people are headed into Manhattan and I'm headed out to Brooklyn, I always get a seat and plenty of room to knit once I pass Wall St. So, in the mornings I listen to my podcasts and audiobooks and the time flys by.

The trip home is different though. I leave my iPod and my knitting in my bag for several reasons. Instead I take out a book and read. The first reason is space. Since I start at the end of the line, I always get a seat for the train ride home, but the trains are much more crowded than they are in the morning. I take up more space when I'm knitting. While no one may know that I'm abstaining, I feel more polite leaving my WIP in my bag. The second reason is that I love reading and I haven't had time for non-assigned reading in a long time. I have honestly read more books (for leisure) in the past three months than I have in the seven years before that. I have so much reading that I want to catch up on and I love having this time allotted for it.

The final reason, and probably the most influential is that I don't want to listen to my iPod because I don't want to miss hearing the subway musicians. For the past few weeks, I have been coming home every day grinning from ear to ear because I just love the subway musicians. When you ride in your car and listen to the radio you pick when it is on and off, you chose the station and type of music you want to hear. In the subway it is completely different. On the subway you are crowded into the car and everything is tedious and mundane until the train stops, the doors open, and you world is filled with steel drums. Because you can't pick when to turn it on, or what type of music will be playing, the musicians in the subway are surprise musical gifts. I can't help but think the world would be a better place if everyone was given a snippet of music during one of the most boring parts of the day.