Leaving New York on the Same Train I Take Every Day

The E train does not care that you are flying to London. Same crowd, same delays, same automated voice, and me in the middle of it with two bags, grinning at nothing.

I had left straight from the office, which is a strange way to begin a trip you have been planning for months. No ceremony. One minute I was answering messages at my desk, the next I was underground with the evening crowd, watching the stations go by.

At JFK the excitement finally had room. I checked in for the Norse Atlantic red eye and let myself say it plainly: first time to London. A city I had only ever seen on screens, now one night away.

The trip did not start when the wheels left the runway. It started somewhere under Queens, when the train I take every day stopped being a commute. Same tracks, different person riding them. I fell asleep over the Atlantic, still smiling a little.