Around Town: The A Train
I notice hair the way other people notice shoes, or watches, or the particular way someone carries themselves on a crowded platform. It's occupational. After 35 years, the eye doesn't really turn off.
But what I noticed first on the A train wasn't the hair.
It was the crossed legs.
Same train, same seats, same light - and not one of them alike.
On the Train
Everyone on the subway is doing the same thing — sitting in the same plastic seats under the same light, moving through the same tunnels toward wherever the day is taking them. The subway is one of the great equalizers. It doesn't care what you're wearing, where you're going, or who you think you are. You get the same seat as everyone else.
And within that sameness, people constantly assert themselves.
She is wearing pink the way some people wear armor — layered, considered, completely her own. The braids are pulled up with intention. The gold jewelry is stacked. The Nikes are exactly right. And she is sitting with her legs crossed in a posture that reads as total self-possession — neither performing nor waiting to be noticed. Just present. Completely, quietly herself.
That's what the crossed legs said. Not elegance as an affectation. Ease as a practice.
Read:
Then, Farther Down the Bench
Same subway car. Same seats. Same afternoon light. Five people sitting in a row, each absorbed in their own moment — a book, a phone, a thought somewhere else.
And then: pink hair. Vivid, unambiguous, completely at home in the middle of an ordinary Thursday.
Nobody in the car is looking at her. She isn't looking at anyone. The pink is not a bid for attention. It's just who she is today, and yesterday, and probably tomorrow — worn the way you wear anything that belongs to you without thinking about it anymore.
This is what self-expression looks like when it has settled in. Not a statement being made. A life being lived.
Read:
Everyone Made a Choice This Morning
New York makes room for all of it — the braided updo and the pink hair and the person in all black eating a sandwich. There's a blonde with a ponytail reading a worn paperback, and a brunette with a chic bob flipped to the side. Everyone is absorbed in whatever is in front of them, and the man in the denim jacket may or may not have noticed any of it. It looks staged. It isn't. It's just a moment on the train — ordinary, unrepeatable, completely New York.
Most of those choices go unnoticed. Some of them — the ones made with enough clarity and enough commitment — catch the eye of someone who has spent a career paying attention to exactly that.
Effortless Color For The Real You.