encounters
an exercise
i.
8:30 a.m. on the C. reading my book and trying to wake up. a woman enters at jay st., breathing heavily and moving quickly through the car. she must’ve been rushing to catch the train on her way to work. stops next to me. i realize she is visibly distraught and hyperventilating. offer my seat but she doesn’t hear me. say it again. this time she doesn’t look so much at me as she looks through me. like she isn’t really there. can’t respond; breath ragged and shaky, cheeks patchy and tear-streaked. no older than me if i had to guess. i notice she isn’t presenting any signs of distress in her appearance other than her emotional state. feel guilty for having this thought, for filtering her through this lens.
the train is unusually quiet today; the morning crowd tactfully ruminates on her efforts to calm herself. an attempt to offer privacy where none can truly exist - the social contract we make with one another in the city. do you need anything, said softly, genuinely, openly. i am bowled over by the care it takes to ask a question like that when the response that follows could be anything. could be something you’re not equipped to offer. yet you ask anyway. the doors open at the next stop and she staggers off, still hyperventilating. a stranger’s question lingers on me for the rest of the day.
ii.
1:30 p.m. on vanderbilt when the motherlode is spotted: four long-haired chihuahuas clustered on the sidewalk, skittering from one passerby’s extended hand to another in search of pets. gregarious alien creatures for whom affection is their lifeblood.
their owner: eager to deliver their backstory through a thick russian accent. a willing caricature, a ringleader of sorts, parading around his circus monkeys. these three are brothers, this one’s missing an eye, this one’s shy. anecdotes steeped in tenderness, coated with pride.
spread the word [about the breed]; we want to see more in the neighborhood. to love something is to want to see it everywhere. i contemplate love as a proliferating thing.
iii.
11:30 a.m. at my east village salon. the only way to describe the aesthetic of this place is “barbie,” an ideal embodied by the majority of clientele. i initially found this hyperfemininity discomforting but have since come around. barbie is every woman and every woman is barbie. at least they’re being honest about it.
i’m neck deep in foils when the next appointment enters. the space buzzes with every entering customer, humming with the promise of metamorphosis. i think about my last visit where an australian woman said the salon became her home and gave her community when she moved here. i think about my stylist saying, when you’re in my chair, i want to know what you’re obsessed with, who you’re fucking, and what you ate for breakfast. pictures of pets and babies are fawned over. advice is doled out, details offered freely, politics whispered (you never know who’s in the room, after all).
the entering client has long platinum hair extensions and the kind of age ambiguity that only comes with injections and multiple cosmetic surgeries. she addresses anyone and everyone. “i was walking down the street the other day when a woman pointed at me and shouted ‘bad bitch alerttt!’ i was so taken aback. no one’s ever said that to me before!” the salon erupts into a chorus of bad bitch alerttt!!! before splitting off into chatter. this is the best part about being a woman. | it’s our job to uplift one another. | don’t you love female empowerment?
two hours pass and my hair is transformed. oh, she braaand new, my stylist remarks to my mirrored self. yes, i want to say, i am brand new here. will you teach me how to be a woman?