Diffusion
In an effort to take a vacation, I’m publishing some old works on here. This is a piece I wrote in 2012.
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I’m anxious all the time; my heart beats like a bird.
The subway car is pretty full. It’s not packed, and people have diffused evenly throughout. No one likes to sit next to people (people, not someone, because if it was someone you wouldn’t mind feeling the heat of their arm against yours) but eventually someone has to do it. It’s just after rush hour so the middle cars are still full, but I always take the last car anyway so I can sit in a corner and rest my head to the side (instead of against the wall behind me which makes me look like an idiot if I in fact fall asleep with my mouth gaping open). I never realize until I sit down how badly I needed to sit down. I guess you never need to sit down. I think if anyone spoke to me I would have to pretend I were deaf. Though there is a cute, youngish guy who looks like he hasn’t shampooed in four-too-many days. He’s listening to music but he’s trying so hard to make it look like he’s listening--foot tapping, biting his lower lip, minor head-bobbing.
Stop. Doors open. A disheveled lady wearing too much clothing for a winter’s day, much less an 88-low day, steps up into the car with bulky bags of what looks like some recyclable bottles and some takeout boxes, a newspaper, some sweaters. A few people look up from their books/kindles, others don’t notice. The youngish guy with the greasy hair has stopped straining so hard to enjoy his music. He sees our bag lady. (“Bum” seems unfairly to connote male.) I expected his face simply to reek of pity, but in one of his most honest moments, probably since he saw a dead dog on the side of the highway when he was 13, he looked on with only the tinge of sadness or pity he couldn’t successfully hide. A fire-red-haired child on the opposite side of the car asks her 30-something mom who wears only jewel tones, “Isn’t she hot, mommy?” “Probably,” mom replies.
Our bag lady does not hold a cup for coins. She does not give a speech. She sits across from me, in the farthest corner toward the front of the train. She lets out a quiet sigh of relief as she finds herself safe and stable and moving without effort. She begins to rifle through the bag of take out containers. This bag is from an over-priced grocery store--a paper bag inside a plastic bag. She settles on styrofoam with something reddish inside, probably something vaguely Latin American.
Faces have begun to crinkle. Someone farted. How dare someone fart in an enclosed space. No, no one farted. That would be comical. “Mommy...” “Shhhhh, honey.” The greasy kid is restraining his upper lip from creeping up to his nose but his eyebrows are unmistakably furrowed. It’s endearing that he’s trying to hide his disgust. A teenager with her hair in a tight ponytail, shorts, and heels has brought the bottom of her flowy shirt up to nose so she can filter the air. The nurse sitting down the row from Bag Lady gets up in something of a huff, offended by the stench. I can’t tell if it’s the food she’s eating or her body or something in her bags that smells but something is rotten. Something is dead. It’s the smell of decay and mold, the kind of scent that attracts flies and vulchers and rats.
I remember being a kid in a parking lot, my dad telling me not to breathe too deeply until we got outside so I wouldn’t inhale too much of the car exhaust. I want to breathe through my mouth but I don’t want to feel as though I can taste the death or decay or rot. Something about smelling it, however unpleasant, makes me feel less vulnerable to it than if I have my mouth open. “At least it’s being filtered.” Maybe. If our faces are where emotion can be read, I would hope this woman is illiterate.
I have seven stops to go. I can’t rid my face of the disgust. I have to change cars.
•••
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After spending ten years in New York working in theater and visual art, I returned to my hometown of Los Angeles in 2018. I’m an author, Tinder’s Resident Consent Educator, multi-media philosopher-artist, and Intimacy Coordinator for TV, Film, and Theater invested in helping others find their voice. My BA in Philosophy, and my academic background in gender studies, ethics, and neuroscience informs my work. I am the author of Boundaries & Consent: A Workbook (Flower Press, 2022) and the Boundaries + Consent for People Pleasers workbook (For the Birds Trapped in Airports, 2023).
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