The noises of traffic and drilling added a background droll to the constantly moving surroundings of people rushing around the city streets. There was something very calming about being able to just walk home. Yes, there was lots of reading and work to be done at home, but right now was her own time. Who knew the forty minute commute would actually serve as a means to regain sanity? She could listen to music and enjoy people watching without worrying about what she needed to accomplish before tomorrow, this was her time to unwind. It was strange that the somewhat chaotic streets were calming. The city could be strangely isolating, full of people but of people that are all in their own little universes, who only snap out of them to yell at slow walkers or taxis that are too anxious to get to their destinations. However, even in this sea of self-contained people, there was some sort of common connection; every single one is just as crazy as the next. Everyone is rushing and self-contained together. Even on the worst days of teaching, somehow the sight of people rudely pushing one another to get on and off the subway was consoling and served as a reminder that out of all of these people, someone had to love their job and yet still felt the urge to be in such a hurry.
This idea that the city kind of made people crazy or somehow instilled this belief that if they are not rushing, they are wasting time, made her feel sane. Her occasional uneasiness was the city’s fault, not her own. Somehow these spectacles worked to break her out of her own urgency. Was pushing past the little old lady gathering her grocery bags or the three year old preoccupied with his juice box really going to save that much time? She felt like she could be an observer, somehow slow herself down and yet still be in the middle of this rushing. It was the kind of control that she needed to regain after a day of some extremely uncontrolled classes. She could control whether she waited the thirty extra seconds to get on the train or whether she wanted to partake in the Olympic dash for seats. The city had a strange way of making her relax. She even found the ever present concrete of the buildings and sidewalks pleasant, for they made her that much more aware of any tree or plant, even ivy was refreshing, a tiny burst of green surviving in hostile territory. The city had a way of reteaching her what was important, and could do it in one simple walk home.