In Transit

Traveling today was far less painless than I had expected it to be.  I had anticipated needing to make flawless transitions among bus, subway, and train, in order to arrive at Rockville Centre at a reasonable time.  Megabus’ stop had changed, since I last traveled from New York in October and was supposed to be farther from Penn Station, where I needed to be.  Fortunately, the bus arrived remarkably early, even with a long layover in Hartford, and I didn’t even have to navigate the subway because Penn Station just happened to be only four blocks away. 

It felt wonderful to be outside in the warm, fresh air, or as fresh as you can get in New York City, after being stuck in the congested bus for hours.  I didn’t even feel particularly anxious as I wandered Penn Station, following the signs for the Long Island Railroad.  However, I did feel a twinge of nervousness, once I had purchased my train ticket with no indication as to where I should go next.  I approached the ticket counter to inquire about where I should board, and was instead directed to the information desk at the end of the row of windows.  Throughout my trip planning with Google Maps, the only trains that ever appeared to be traveling to Rockville Centre were Babylon trains, so I was rather confused when I was directed towards a track with a train bound for a final destination of Massapequa Park, especially with a Babylon train waiting on the adjacent track.  I decided to just trust the information desk guy and boarded the Massapequa train. 

I was struck by how spacious, clean, and cool the train was in comparison to the subway.  Even the lobby of the station had been far stuffier.  But here, there was climate control and people weren’t crammed together, looking miserable.  It seemed as if it would be a pleasant enough ride.  I sat down with two gentlemen in a cluster of four seats with one bag sitting in the adjacent seat, as the overhead rack was far too near the ceiling to fit any bags.  The train’s first stop just so happened to be Rockville Centre, as we were only passing through Jamaica Station. 

I was also very grateful that my dad had insisted on me taking his cell phone with me, so that I was easily able to inform my friend which train I had made it onto and locate her once I arrived, since there were several directions, in which I could start walking.  I haven’t seen her in years, but we’ve kept in touch through e-mail, Facebook chat, and the occasional phone call.  It felt like we just picked up where we left off.  I love that feeling, when there’s no awkwardness, no need to get to know the person all over again, and instead, you just resume. 

She took me out to dinner at a Greek restaurant near the train station that she and her sister frequent quite regularly.  The waitress knows her by name and quite possibly knows what she orders by now as well.  I couldn’t figure a way to eat my lamb gyro to keep it in one piece, so I opted to use the fork and knife.  Hunger had caught up with me finally, as I’ve had little appetite over the past couple of days due to nerves, and I polished off the entire meal.  Even now, hours later, I still feel rather content. 

After dinner, we raced back to the Lakeview Public Library, where my friend works, for the knitting class that she was scheduled to teach.  A handful of women showed up, eager to continue with the past few weeks of lessons.  For most, this was the only time that they had to do anything for themselves, away from family and work.  One woman was ecstatic to have made something with her own hands, even if it was slightly deformed and holy, where she had dropped several stitches.  I didn’t remember how to cast on, so my friend started me off and I spent the evening plugging along with twenty stitches back and forth on the needles.  It was quite relaxing and I make good progress with a more professional looking knit than my first and only piece at home. 

Later, we spent our last couple of hours together chatting over tea, before heading for the airport.

New York City Musings

Yesterday, I caught the first bus to New York City to pay a visit to the Polish Consulate.  I will explain more on why I was there at a later date.  While I was waiting, I felt slightly overwhelmed by the constant chatter from the line of people that extended onto the sidewalk because I had not a clue as to what they were saying to each other.  I didn’t even have a general idea regarding the topics of conversation, like I sometimes can with Spanish, as I will recognize a handful of words, which help to piece the puzzle together.  Yet, I have learned relatively few words and phrases through my Polish audio lessons, thus far, and, as a result, I was only able to pick out about three or four words, never mind guessing at content.

I feared attempting to make use of my few phrases, as I worried that they might not get the hint that I only fully grasp the English language and would continue trying to speak to me in Polish, or that I would face ridicule for my ignorance.  In hindsight, these were rather irrational fears, but they were fears, nonetheless, which caused me to keep to myself and speak only in my native tongue, when I absolutely had to. 

And that was just an isolated location in a city dominated by English-speakers!  I worry what my response might be to a situation, in which I am the minority, socially isolated by the barrier of language.  I wouldn’t be able to just walk a few blocks in any direction, so that I might be comforted by the sound of familiar words.  Perhaps, this is just another one of my comfort zones that I need to break through, and further learn to cope with the element of uncertainty and the fact that I cannot know everything.

After this, I discovered Bryant Park, which is more like a rectangular area of concrete with some small trees and shrubbery planted in mulched soil, and scattered about the grounds.  Yet, it was still a lovely reprieve from hurriedness and traffic of the nearby streets.  Several box shaped stores were open on the property, selling a variety of products from coffee to pickles to winter clothing accessories.  I weaved among these little shops and the many iron patio sets, and on to the center of the park, which was void of tree cover and featured an ice-skating rink.  There seemed to be a set capacity for the rink and time allotments, as there was a long line of patrons waiting to enter the facility to get suited up.  I found a cozy table in the warm sunlight and read a book for awhile, all bundled in my winter gear, as there was still a chill in the air. 

Later, as I was wandering back to the Port Authority Bus Station, I stumbled upon Times Square with all of its flashy advertisements and television screens.  I meandered along the blue road, designated for pedestrian traffic, amazed at how I never realized for how many blocks Times Square extended.  As I waited at a corner for traffic to go by, I heard the distant sound of some sort of folk music.  I identified the source to be a live band, diagonally across from where I stood.  Their music had a Hispanic/Latin beat, but I could not place it into a specific genre with my limited knowledge of cultural music.  The band’s wind instrumentalist had a case full of wooden pipes, which he swapped in between and during songs for varying effects.

As I wandered, I also thought of what it might be like to live in such a large metropolitan area.  It would be an interesting experience for a time, but I believe that I would generally be unhappy, being so isolated from nature with massive man-made structures looming overhead and enveloped by a sense of loneliness in such inescapable anonymity. 

My thoughts then turned on the bus ride home to how it feels that I have led two vastly different lives, the crossover of which is rather unidentifiable.  In childhood, I was so socially isolated.  I vacationed with my family to big cities, stayed in hotels, and went shopping. I often dined in restaurants on the weekends and indulged in fast food at least once a week.  I regularly attended rock concerts and theater performances.  Yet, now, I prefer the country.  I have a more nature-oriented, holistic approach to life, and try my best to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  I take risks, pushing my comfort zone, yet keep a close eye on where my money goes.  It’s fascinating how drastically my personality, my goals, my values seem to have changed over the years; however, I suppose I am really the same person underneath it all, just coming into my own.

West to East Coast Travel

I am grateful to have a home, a place to come back to when there is nowhere else to go, where I receive constant love and support, and have time to regroup.  I was better able to appreciate it upon this homecoming for at least two reasons that I have identified.  Firstly, the culture shock is significantly less, as Salt Spring Island was not nearly as isolated as Sherkin Island, complete with shops, traffic, and crowds of people, especially during the summer months and at the Saturday market.  Salt Spring seemed somewhat similar to Western Massachusetts, perhaps like the Hilltowns or a smaller version of Northampton, except surrounded by water. 

Secondly, I keep forgetting how much I dislike the traveling part of traveling.  The flight out of Redmond, Oregon was quite nice, during which I was able to gaze in awe upon the landscape, since the plane was at a low enough elevation.  It passed over some of the snow-capped mountains, most likely those a part of the Cascade Mountains’ chain, which gave me such a different perspective of them, seeing the topography from above, which looked as if the ridges and divots of the mountains had been chiseled into the rocky, nearly deserted landscape.  I had become so accustomed to looking out at the horizon, where these giant formations hold their ground, yet I still felt intimidated by these pronounced forms surrounding and looming over the town.  I am more familiar and at ease with the hill-like mountains of the east coast.  I am still unable to comprehend elevations at which snow exists on top of mountains and they seem like giants even from hundreds of miles away.

On the second flight, from Seattle to New York City, I was hoping to sleep through the majority of it, being overnight travel.  Unfortunately, it was quite uncomfortable seating for a cross-country flight, I was freezing even with three layers on, and I kept having this internal dilemma about whether or not to wake up my seat mates to use the bathroom.  As a result, I slept for less than two of the five and a half hour flight.

When the plane landed in New York, it was raining as the weather report had predicted, but fortunately not down-pouring, as I made my way to the airtrain pick up spot.  The airtrain ultimately went to a couple of stations outside of the airport grounds, but there were two or three stops before that at different sections of the airport.  From the location that I had gotten on at, anyone could ride the airtrain, and since people who are transferring between flights use the airtrain between terminals, I do not believe that there is any kind of established security check.  Who’s to say that any random person could walk into an airport terminal and avoid security?  Maybe there is something in the system to prevent such an incident that I do not know about, but it seemed pretty sketchy to me.  Other than that little detail, the airtran was pretty low key, since few people tend to be up before the sun.

I transferred to the subway at Jamaica Station, and as soon as I saw those Metro Card machines, I knew that I was going to have troubles.  I am not at all a big city girl.  The last time I took the subway into Boston for a Peace Corps interview, my greatest difficulty was trying to figure out how to get the entry machine to read the Metro Card.  I felt like I had tried it every which way, but then one of the workers, I think, got the thing to work.  I felt incredibly silly, just as I did now in New York, with my huge pack and too exhausted to fully understand the picture instructions for how to insert the Metro Card.  That’s what my excuse will be, exhaustion.  Anyways, somehow, I finally figured out the machine all by myself and escaped through the gate into the railroad terminal.

Descending from here to the subway terminal was quite a shock to my system, as it was deathly hot and incredibly stuffy.  Of course there were already no seats once the subway pulled up, so I got amazing workout trying to hold myself upright with my pack against the momentum of the train.  As more people entered the train at each stop, I think I became a bit claustrophobic.  It was crowded and breathing became more difficult; I felt light-headed and nauseous; I was sweating profusely.  I had to get off of this train, otherwise I was sure to black-out, as these were the tell-tale signs.  I tried to hold out through a couple more stops, but finally decided that it wasn’t worth the risk, and so, I burst out of the train doors at the Queens stop, dropped my pack, stripped off my layers, and plopped down on the floor.  I was in no state to care what the people around me thought or what disgusting things had been on that floor.

After watching the E train pass by four more times, I mustered up the courage to get back on and ride it again, even though, I still didn’t feel quite right, but this probably wouldn’t be remedied until I got away from the subway system completely.  It was now rush hour and the trains were packed so full that people literally spilled out of the opened doors onto the platform, but managed to stay on their feet.  I chose a subway car that seemed slightly less crowded and I was able to at least prop my pack up against the wall where I stood.  Eventually, a seat became available and sitting down helped me to keep my horrible physical state at bay.

The subway finally reached Penn Station, where throngs of people were milling about in every direction, making it difficult to navigate around them or at least to avoid getting in anyone’s way.  I ducked into the nearest restaurant/café that offered seating, where I ordered a light breakfast and tried to calm my stomach and my nerves.  I decided that I was in no shape to go wandering around the city, and instead, I would simply remain at the station for the hours until my bus departed.  I learned that the seating at the center of the station was only for Amtrak and New Jersey transit customers and the unfriendly woman at the information desk seemed to believe that I was crazy for thinking that there could be a waiting area for bus patrons, since the busses didn’t stop at Penn Station.  Neither she nor anyone else could tell me about the location of the Megabus stop and all I had to go on was that somewhere between 31^st and 33^rd streets on 9^th Street, there it was, but that would be quite a distance to cover.  I decided to not worry too much about it until the time came closer to noon. Instead, I sat on the floor, propped up against a wall with one arm through the shoulder strap of my pack and my hat pulled far enough over my eyes, so that I could nod off occasionally without anyone suspecting that I was actually asleep.  This is how I spent about four hours waiting for the bus.

Finally, the time came and I suited up in my rain gear, while still sporting my crocs, and hiked over a block to 9^th Street, which seemed a lot longer than the distance in the station between 7^th and 8^th streets.  I was quite relieved, as I approached the next intersection, to see the obvious Megabus logo on a parked bus and signs around a fenced in area with tarp tents inside, just across the street.  I was even happier once I actually boarded the bus, knowing that I was on my way home, and cuddled up with my daypack and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, the combination of exhaustion, hunger, dehydration, and residual subway effects were taking their toll on me with a painful headache that lasted the entire ride home.  I felt horrible that I wasn’t able to express much gratitude for or excitement at seeing my parents when they picked me up at the terminal in Holyoke.  I shared with them some of what I had done in Oregon and they updated me on the happenings here, and soon after arriving at the house, I ate a banana, guzzled some water, took and ibuprofen, and fell asleep for a few hours to remedy my current health issues.  Amazingly, the headache was gone when I awoke, so I was better able to appreciate the comfort of home, after that long and uncomfortable trip.

Now, I find myself trying to regroup.  I had left my room in chaos when I left in May with half of my things packed into boxes, partly from moving back home last spring and partly anticipating my next move out, and the other half of my things set in random places, as an attempt at organization.  I don’t think I would have remembered exactly where I had left everything, even if my roommate hadn’t reorganized the room. It looks much tidier now, but the set up will make it difficult to live out of the boxes, as they are all now stacked upon each other.  I am also having difficultly remembering what little projects I had started or where I had paused with them.  I know that I was trying to get rid of unnecessary possessions, condense my life, but how far I got or what still needed to be sorted, I couldn’t tell.

Yet, even though I have this disoriented feeling, it also feels like I never left home.  For the most part, everything and everyone is the same as when I left.  All of the things that I’ve done and seen and the people who I’ve met seem like part of a dream, like some kind of time warp.  Maybe I fell asleep one night and entered into this alternate universe, also known as Canada, where five months is the equivalent to a matter of hours in my reality.  In spite of the strange feeling, I think that it’s pretty cool to have really lived a dream.

Individual Exploration

Early Wednesday morning, before the sun even rose, the love of my life boarded a bus to New York City, en route to the suburbs of Washington, D.C.  He’s off to get a fresh start, get back on his feet, explore a world outside of his comfort zone, and develop a relationship with his biological father, with whom he will be living.  I knew he was going to leave and I witnessed it with my own eyes.  Yet, after spending the past six months with him and being only an hour’s drive away, it’s hard to believe that he could be anywhere else.  We both have things that we want to do, individual lives to lead, and goals and dreams to pursue, so the time is not right for us to be together; at least not in convenient proximity to each other.  We just need to believe that our love is strong enough to withstand the test of time, and that one day, our paths may cross once again.

As for me, I finally get to begin a new adventure, and will be hopping on a plane bound for Seattle on May 12.  From there, I will be ferrying up to Salt Spring Island, which is located north of Victoria and southwest of Vancouver, British Colombia.  I have been accepted for an internship position at a wildlife rehabilitation center there, where I will delve deeper into this field.  I am hoping that a full-time position will provide me with adequate exposure to all aspects of the work, so that I can determine if it is something that I would like to pursue as a career.  I decided several months ago that instead of jumping about between a variety of different types of internships, as interesting as that would be, I should focus on a particular area of interest, so that I can get a better sense of the field and develop and refine skills to make myself a more appealing job candidate.

I have kept coming back to animal care positions over the course of my life, and I actually could see myself doing wildlife rehabilitation for the long-term, having spent a portion of the past two years volunteering for such work; at least this is the feeling for now.  It still aggravates me how everything is so incredibly subject to change.  I do worry about going over to Canada and discovering, as I go through the internship, that I could not make this my life’s work, forcing me to go back to the drawing board, and potentially spending another long break at home.  I am trying not to think too much about that and just enjoy the internship for what it is and deal with this issue if it even arises.  I hope to keep traveling for awhile, and I need to get myself in gear for that, after spending the past six months hanging about at home in my comfort zone.