Alissa Semple
MHC 250
Professor Clyde Haberman
February 7th, 2017
Writing Assignment #1—About You
I’m a sophomore at Hunter College at the Macaulay Honors College, and if I someone had told two or three years ago that I would be where I am today, I would have believed them. I worked hard at my alma mater, The Mary Louis Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Jamaica, Queens. I had no choice but to work hard. My teachers held us all to high standards, and I tried my best, which landed me in honors and AP classes, which subsequently landed me with lots of late night panic attacks and frantic exclamations of “Wait—I got B!” after an important exam.
Before Mary Louis, I had lived in Guyana, my parents’ original country, for my form 1 and 2 (seventh and eighth grade) years. Guyana is a South American country adjacent to Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname—the only English-speaking country on the continent. There, I learned how to climb a mango tree, hop fences, and developed an accent thicker than molasses, which I discovered I hated. I lived in the capital, Georgetown with my aunt, but on most weekends and holidays, my older cousin and I would hop in the minivans at the station at Stabroek Market, the main form of transportation in the country, and take the bumpy two hour drive up to my grandmother’s house on East Demarara, Calcutta—the deep countryside, where the accents got more raw and cows often stood smack dab in the middle of the road and the driver would have to come shoo them away. My grandmother herself had at least twenty cows and fifty chickens, as well as 2 dogs, Maggie, and Spot, who I adored, and a cat, Rosie, who I named myself. My cousins and I would climb the tamarind tree in my grandmother’s backyard by the chicken coop, eating the sour fruit and tossing the shells to the mud past our dangling, slippered feet.
Living in Guyana was a 360-degree turn from living in Rosedale, Queens, where at twelve, the deli a couple blocks up was the farthest I’d venture out on foot. The Q buses took me everywhere I was allowed to go, and highest thing I’d ever climbed was the jungle gym at the Brookville Park a few blocks away from home. In fact, the only jungle I had ever known was the concrete kind, but after my years in Guyana I became familiar with Madia and the Amazon.
Moving back to New York shortly before high school proved to be another stark change for me. First, I lost the Creolese, abandoning it for New York slang that bounced block to block around my Southeastern Queens neighborhood. Then, I began to explore. I fell in love with Manhattan, as confusing as it was. Sometimes I’d simply walk where the crowds led me, nowhere in particular to go, just hoping to stumble on something memorable. I loved the street performers in the train stations, the smell of Halal food on a Long Island city street, the welcoming rush of an air-conditioned train car on a hot summer day, the way the bright lights lit up the streets at night, the hole-in-the-wall restaurants where the food was always the best.
As I got to know the city better, the novelty wore off. I began avoiding Times Square like it was the plague. I hated the E train during rush hour, I hated the thought of how many hands had touched the pole before me and how many of those germs were now on my own hands. I hated the feeling of rushing to an appointment and being forced to walk at 0.2 miles an hour because of the tourist gawking at your average, everyday bodega. The grinning train performers lost their charm, and on days when schoolwork left a burning hole in my brain where I wanted peace and quiet to fill, their boom boxes, twirls, flips didn’t impress me. I developed an irrational yet, at the same time, strangely rational crippling fear of pigeons.
However, I’ve learned to find a balance. On some days, I stop and stare at a sign, alongside a tourist with her floppy hat and Polaroid camera, just as interested and unashamed as she is. I smile back at the train performer and clap even when no one else does. I buy the ridiculously overpriced bottled water even though I can get it for fifty cents cheaper in Queens. I run for the bus. It’s not very New Yorker of me. On most days, I walk quickly without glancing for a second behind me. I don’t ask for directions and keep going confidently even though I have no clue where I am. I complain about the MTA raising fares yet again. It’s what New Yorkers do, and as I force myself unto the crowded express train, muttering, “Can ya’ll move in?”, a little bit of the Guyanese Creolese not completely buried rearing its head, I’m happy to be able to call myself one.
“Live every minute as if you are late for the last train.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York
Writing Assignment #2–Transit Experience
Upon the sight of the long-bearded, unshaven man with the large black laundry cart, which was positively overflowing with plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes, and the usual assortment of colorful plastic bags, I slowed my quick walk through the train car, hesitant to continue walking. I suddenly became uneasily aware that all of the passengers had settled at the back of the car, as far away from the homeless man as possible. He was wearing a denim jacket with worn brown shoes, and the benches closest to him were empty. I stared at the commuters around me, wondering if my nose was stuffy and I wasn’t detecting some smell coming from the estranged man. After several long sniffs, I made my way to the end of the car where he sat alone with seemingly indifferent eyes, and sat on the bench directly opposite him.
Other than the cart he had placed in front of his lap, the man was dressed fairly neatly, with no obstructions on the seats, his cart taking up less space than a parent’s stroller would. He seemed to be in his late 60’s, had not shaven, yet he did not smell, and he held a paperback book in his hand. I did not read the title, but overcome with fatigue from the previous night, drifted off to sleep. Fifteen minutes later I awoke with a start, discovering that quickly, as express trains often do, the train had filled. There were people all around me, but stunned, I realized that the man was sitting on his own subway island. People stood all around him, holding on to poles, while two empty seats lay open and ready right next to him. People even avoided standing in front of him, and he looked around blatantly at the unmoving faces of the passengers around him. He looked straight ahead, where his eyes met mine for a brief moment before I felt the sharp pang secondhand embarrassment and pity, and turned away.
After about ten minutes of a shaky silence, filled with slightly accusatory stares, he addressed the entire train car. “Is there something wrong? Why won’t you sit?” He looked at the man closest to him, who was holding on to a pole overhead, navy blue suit cut perfectly. “Why won’t you sit?” The man didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead with a poker face seemingly carved out of marble, and just as I thought all hope was lost, a woman, not taller than 5 feet, pushed her way through the crowd of people, a barrage of “pardon me”’s falling from her lips, dignified as a queen, and sat next to the old bearded man.
“Is something wrong with me, ma’am?” he asked her, almost a whisper.
“No, something’s wrong with them.” Her soft lilting accent and reassuring smile seemed to appease his discomfort, and the people around them shuffled around in what seemed to be shame. A young woman with dark hair took the seat next to him, and the remainder of my journey was spent in pensive silence. I glanced at the old man again, his blue eyes as pointed as a child’s, and left the train.
