Introspective Me
Throughout my life, I have noticed that I am a very introspective person judging from the way I think and talk to myself. Its almost like the inside of my head is tiled with shattered glass, reflecting shattered images, and light is projecting these jig sawed images onto my thoughts. Even the way I refer to my thoughts in speech like using the word’s “onto” as if my thoughts were physical individual entities. I speak to myself subconsciously everyday however it’s something that’s so apparent that its not awkward.
Everyday I commute on the same packed train and almost every morning it’s always the same half-awoken people that obliviously block the subway doors as the frantic “early-birds” try to figure out ways to rearrange each other so that they all can fit. Here I am, trying to squeeze in between a wall-street stockbroker and a college graduate’s hip messenger bag. I can’t help but notice how shiny the broker’s pointed black shoes are. “Where do you think he works? Wherever it is, they give a great shoeshine there. Maybe Mid-Town Manhattan? I’ve seen a couple of shoe shiners there. That’s such an old craft, who really shines shoes anymore? Especially that well?” I usually try not to stare at something for too long, it’s a New Yorker trait. It’s almost this unwritten law that you can’t break. You can’t stare at someone or anything for too long like the sun. I can see that unfriendly glint in the old woman’s eye’s sitting down right in front of as I gripped onto the pole, my arm jerking in and out of its socket. The train rocked harder and harder as I readjusted my grip again and again. With a blink of an eye, the glint says, “What are you looking at?” in a dozen ways.
So I quickly jolt my head up, directing my eyes to the window. I survey myself, the product of the infamous early morning “half awake” dressing frenzy. “I could’ve folded that shirt last night.” “My cowlick hair looks especially cow licked today.” It’s hard for me to focus in on myself because streams of green and red subway traffic lights shoot past the window. Before you know it, it is my stop. “Perhaps I should’ve thought twice about how I was going to politely get off the train with out being scolded.” I make my way through the shoes, trying my best not to deface the magnificent work of the Midtown Manhattan Shoe Shiner. That’s another unwritten law in New York. If I were to step on his shoe, I would’ve been in the biggest hassle of my life. “Phew, I can breathe again without having to feel like a bagpipe.”
My mind is its own body. Almost like this alternate me. Someone who was to greet me would get the usual “Hey”. What they don’t know is that to utter the words hey entails split second thoughts that aren’t apparent in any time or space. It only exists in my mind.
Everyday I commute on the same packed train and almost every morning it’s always the same half-awoken people that obliviously block the subway doors as the frantic “early-birds” try to figure out ways to rearrange each other so that they all can fit. Here I am, trying to squeeze in between a wall-street stockbroker and a college graduate’s hip messenger bag. I can’t help but notice how shiny the broker’s pointed black shoes are. “Where do you think he works? Wherever it is, they give a great shoeshine there. Maybe Mid-Town Manhattan? I’ve seen a couple of shoe shiners there. That’s such an old craft, who really shines shoes anymore? Especially that well?” I usually try not to stare at something for too long, it’s a New Yorker trait. It’s almost this unwritten law that you can’t break. You can’t stare at someone or anything for too long like the sun. I can see that unfriendly glint in the old woman’s eye’s sitting down right in front of as I gripped onto the pole, my arm jerking in and out of its socket. The train rocked harder and harder as I readjusted my grip again and again. With a blink of an eye, the glint says, “What are you looking at?” in a dozen ways.
So I quickly jolt my head up, directing my eyes to the window. I survey myself, the product of the infamous early morning “half awake” dressing frenzy. “I could’ve folded that shirt last night.” “My cowlick hair looks especially cow licked today.” It’s hard for me to focus in on myself because streams of green and red subway traffic lights shoot past the window. Before you know it, it is my stop. “Perhaps I should’ve thought twice about how I was going to politely get off the train with out being scolded.” I make my way through the shoes, trying my best not to deface the magnificent work of the Midtown Manhattan Shoe Shiner. That’s another unwritten law in New York. If I were to step on his shoe, I would’ve been in the biggest hassle of my life. “Phew, I can breathe again without having to feel like a bagpipe.”
My mind is its own body. Almost like this alternate me. Someone who was to greet me would get the usual “Hey”. What they don’t know is that to utter the words hey entails split second thoughts that aren’t apparent in any time or space. It only exists in my mind.