#crutchessuck

 

Most subway riders know there’s a 3-inch gap between where a car door meets the platform. We pay it no mind. But to me, it’s a chasm, 44 miles wide, 100 deep. It’s where the tip of one of my crutches slipped through today. I tumbled to the dirty concrete platform and had to be lifted to my feet by strangers.

The mean old streets of New York are mean enough. The last thing you need is to be is "disabled". Having been struck down in the street by a speeding biker recently, resulting in a broken foot resulting in surgery, I’ve learned the hard way what it’s like to brave the big bad city, one foot forward.

I usually take the subway ride to work in the morning, arriving in roughly 25 minutes. This all has changed. First, a walk to the station, which used to take about 10 minutes (this has stretched to twice that time).  Each step, or swing, requires three times the energy, so by the time I arrive at the station, I find myself already damp with sweat.

When I enter the station, this is when the real fun begins. In a typical commuter morning, people pile on the trains, eyes either facing forward, or ears crazy-glued to their smart phones; the routine has become so burned in the collective DNA that any deviation is met with utter shock. As I try to adjust myself so I can board a car against a wave of retreating commuters, no one bothers to allow any leeway. Often rushing feet threaten to kick my crutches underneath me. Very few acknowledge my predicament and at worst, nearly send me reeling to the platform with no apology.

Once arriving to my stop, I set about the task of trying to locate an elevator or escalator. I pull out my trusty app – and lo & behold, no such luck. This means hopping up, step by step, to the street. Yes – sometimes some generous fellow commuter may offer to lend a hand, and I deeply appreciate it, but at this juncture I’m on my own.

Once I see the light of day again, I get enveloped by the wave of the crowd, inevitably traveling in the opposite direction, again completely oblivious to my plight. I bob to and fro, as if on skis - trying to be avoided being sideswiped to the sidewalk, until finally after squeezing through the revolving doors, mercilessly pushed from behind and thrust into my office lobby, exhausted and dripping with perspiration.

And so my day begins.

Biking In NYC

The Leopard drank beer and laid around in front of the TV a bit too much this Winter, so once the weather broke I finally decided to venture out and get some much needed exercise.
For me, my bike is the weapon of choice to battle the vestiges of an inert existence.

Getting into the rhythm of the city riding is another thing altogether. In my misspent youth, I was once a bike messenger, briskly weaving between moving traffic, riding down insanely steep staircases and cruising the wrong way down a one-way streets. This was second nature, never delivering a second thought during my my appointed rounds.

Nowadays, older (but probably not much wiser), helmet is firmly on head, earphones are in pockets and attention is on the business at hand. Yet even those precautions go but so far on the mean streets of New York.

I ventured out down the city bike paths to my job the other morning thinking myself quite the adventurer, only to be thrust in a crowd of like-minded Brooklynites. Immediately, my middle-aged alarm went on as I fell back, followed by a youthful assemblage, not wanting to block anyone's path.
I had barely made it across the Brooklyn Bridge when I began to gasp for air, refusing to get off the bike and stroll, as others in my age group had done, as I rode to the top, and then coasted down the other side, incredibly grateful to ease my burning legs.
Once on the Manhattan side, cars whooshed by, making me fear I'd make my destination in one piece.

A word to the wise when navigating the clogged streets of New York: There are NO rules.
"Green" means, red; "walk" means stop.  Everything is intuitive. Somehow, I made it to my place of employment. But somehow I think a peace - keeping stint in Afghanistan would have been easier.