Loud screeches of brakes and the aged amber colored lights filled the subway. Clenching my rain-soaked purse, I watched as people entered and exited the train, making up stories about their lives: where they were from, their jobs, and how many cats they owned. Occupied by my imaginary storylines, I passed the time almost as rapidly as the doors opened and closed. The Catcher in the Rye was in my bag but already read, since I purchased it two days before. My phone in my hand was riding the fence of death and the risk for music was too drastic. Constricted by the crowds of people in my summer program, I had left my designated group to go to the New York Historical Society, alone. To be able to walk back in time with no one to interrupt my thoughts.

     Now sitting on the train after, I had no regrets. My choice to venture alone was dicey, risking my leisure privileges. Now reflecting, I was less impressed by the society’s abundance of stained glass Tiffany lamps but fascinated with the significant paintings and charismatic shoe collection. Titled as ‘Permanent Collection,’ both were far from. Yet this permanence challenged my chain of thought as I narrated the reality show. Across from my seat was a serendipitously placed makeup advertisement. Two huge eyes watched over the train, against a black background watching each move anyone made. Perhaps like that of big brother and the current corrupted political scene, or possibly an eternal being challenging the values of religion, to my symbolically inclined imagination. Below sat an older tenacious woman with tired yet determined eyes, holding a sign, “No Muslim ban.” The subway car reflected my recent walk through the museum as well as its windows, filled with nothing but repeated history. One may say coincidence, but I say not. A black woman sat a few seats beside her. Images of the infamous Ruby Bridges painting I had seen minutes before flashed through my mind. While my intent was to experience the past by walking through curated halls, but all I had to do was observe the train. No special ticket. Simply, a MetroCard.

     The New Yorkers around me saw a typical train ride, but I saw everything but that. Government corruption, racial discrimination, progress from that, and ignorance of the difference between religion and nationality were merely the surface of the thoughts running through my mind. The inside of the train was coincidentally the inside of my mind.

     I am immersed in another world when dabbling with the conditions of Thoreau’s mental state while crafting Civil Disobedience or imagining Dr. King’s environmental position while writing “The Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Yet I drown in a sea of unexamined life, the ocean of my upbringing. My parents listen to my explanations and thoughts, my breadth and depth describing peaceful political protest and racism reform. They listen, but only reply “Okay, Molly.”

     My pale skin and blue eyes are not victims of discrimination. The often invisible adversity I’ve overcome stems not from my physicality. I am challenged by my parents’ health, and even more so my broken relationship with my father, which despite my efforts does not fit back together.

     One Friday night at my second job, while I was making sandwiches for the sixth continuous hour, a lady came in. She wasn’t exactly kind or polite, merely tolerable. As I filled tomatoes and relish to her sub, I learned she had cancer, overwhelmed by the holiday she wasn’t supposed to see. What we see from the outside usually is not reality.

    As my desired destination neared the platform, my ideas of society and purpose were altered. Our current realities parallel those of previous generations; they merely go by different names. We are permanently fixed if we cannot learn empathy and increase general knowledge of the application of change through vision, policy, and activism. Maybe, if we as a society can overcome racism, sexism, xenophobia, and every other human-created misconception that we often neglect to acknowledge, perhaps then a train ride would solely be, a train ride.