I wanted to take a better picture, but I was so tired, I couldn’t focus my camera or angle it correctly so this was the best I could do in my state. But I had to really capture it since it was the first time I took the train late at night by myself.

This photo was taken 11:23pm on October 11 in the A train going downtown toward 42nd street Port Authority Bus Terminal. My closest friend, Stephanie, called me at 9:00pm on Saturday and said she was heading back to school the next morning and wanted to see me before she left. I hadn’t seen her all week because I had class, and her break was inconveniently placed right in the middle of the week. I really wanted to see her before she headed back to school, so I stuffed some clothes in my bag and was headed for the train station at around 10:00pm when my roommate Rebekah, ahem, warned me about the dangers of walking by myself at night. She also added a nice little story about gang activities in the area that one of our mutual friends had experienced. I was thoroughly frightened, so we texted a few people and only the one and only Pun answered! Yay for Chris! It was already around 11:30 by the time we started walking to the train station and I was exhausted. The walk to the A train on 125th street wasn’t bad at all that time of night, despite Rebekah’s warnings I got to the station safely.

I had to transfer from the A to the 1 and then the 7. I was hoping for a nice quiet empty subway ride home, but surprisingly there was a healthy amount of commuters still up at this time of night. The A train was filled with sleeping commuters, and all I could think of was Emma Lazarus’ poem “New Colossus” specifically the quote, “‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'” But mostly the first part of the quote, haha. I was extremely tired, and even though there was a significant amount of people on the train, all you could hear was the braking of the train and the movement over the tracks. Everyone was sleeping, besides two girls who were texting or something. I can tell that most of them were just getting off work, they had their bags, work clothes on and looked exhausted. The city that never sleeps actually does sleep, on the trains, waiting for the bus, and anywhere it can. This city is filled with people that are trying to reach their dreams or just working hard to allow someone else to reach theirs. Just watching the amount of people getting on the train at 11:30pm, 12:00am, 1:00am in their work attire, sitting down and instantly falling asleep puts into perspective the reason why the city never sleeps.

This photo is the tree that grows in front of my house. This tree was planted when my youngest sister was born, making it around 14 years old and also the youngest on the block.

I have no idea what kind of tree this is, but every year it is always the first tree on our block to change colors. This tree represents a changing of the seasons, that transitions so seamlessly and elegantly. Just by looking at a tree, you are able to tell what season it is; if it is bare, colorful, budding, or clothed in leaves.

I was home alone the whole weekend, so I spent it in my sisters’ room since it was bigger, and when I opened their blinds this explosion of color instantly hypnotized me. I was staring at a tree for about 5 minutes, just looking at it, standing there with the window blind chord still in my hand. When I snapped out of it, I took a look down the block and everything was still green. Quite an amazing contrast.

I was a bit nostalgic that day so I had spent it looking through childhood pictures since my whole family was out on a church retreat and I came home to an empty house. I went through all the baby pictures, from when it was just me and my older sister, to when my youngest sister was born. Our family kept growing and it was all a seamless transition from having only one sister, to now three, similar to this tree. This tree was planted the very same year my third sister, Acacia (ironically her name is a type of tree), was born. Every year, the tree grew significantly but we didn’t notice on a day to day basis until one of us pointed out that we were able to touch the top of the tree just last year, its growth was so seamless and unnoticeable. I didn’t notice how much all four of us had grown within the past 10 years. Maybe it was the air that day, the dark gloomy sky or just remembering how small the tree and all four of us were, but I really missed when all four of us sisters were at home together. My older sister and I are in college, leaving only two of us at home now, so there isn’t that daily commotion that used to pervade through our house. What was once a noisy and rambunctious daily life became a quiet one, and I really missed that. A new season of life started for me this year, and it came so quickly just like how this tree rushed to scream that fall was here, while the rest of the older trees seemed to want to enjoy summer longer. The older I get the more I want time to slow down.

–Chloe Chai