Stepping into the New Year

I felt as if it were my first time taking the Metro North train. I had a book with me, and the first three pages seemed very interesting, indeed. Nevertheless, I had to put it down and looked at the familiar Southern New England landscape that caught my interest. Smallest things. The many cell phone towers that I hadn't ever noticed before. How odd were their shapes. So conspicuous and yet for some reason I had never noticed them before.

And when the train passed by the river that opens to Westport, I thought the reflection of the I-95 overpass on the tranquil water very comforting. I had never noticed that before, either. Was it because the water was never so calm later in the day when I usually take the Metro North?

It was the first time I was in a Metro North train as the sun was rising. The train itself was new. It was not the usual type where the seats were saggy through years and years of abuse by various human bottoms. The exterior as well as the interior of the cars in this train were different. The seats were noticeably more comfortable. There's even a cup holder for the chai that I hastily made before running to the station. From inside the warm car I could see the shadow of the train on the freezing landscape outside, speeding past me by. At first I thought I could see myself, but no, the shape I saw in the shadow wasn't the windows where my shadow could have been, but rather, the wheels and the rest of the bottom of the train. The sun's sleepy rays remain low, seeking only the machinery that is hidden below the floor of the train.

This was an express train that only had two stops before my new destination, Stamford. In the past when I took the train, always to New York, it would make countless stops that brought on lethargy to my mood. Again, something new.

Perhaps I was in the mood for discovering new things on this first day of a new work, the first work day of a new year. I finished sipping the last bit of my homemade chai, and put away the book that I would undoubtedly read at another trip once the mood of discovering novelty wears off. The book is apparently about a Sri Lankan's experience across the globe, yet another story of yet another immigrant, and as trite that might be, I still identified with it. Nonetheless, I had to put it away. I noticed a few people whose race was that of the Sinhalese, or similar. I wondered if they were also programmers at one of the Stamford financial firms. It's a horrible stereotype, but I haven't seen an exception. A friend of mine told me that her group at Cisco was all Indians except her, a very white Jewish girl half the median age. The stereotype is probably skewed, but one has to understand that immigration laws in this country reinforces this stereotype.

I wonder who would be in my group. I looked around the car and saw all white people, mostly in suits and ties, some staring intensely at their laptops or some important-looking document. I wonder who I was in their midst. I was beginning to look like them, with my black coat and suit and white shirt.

As I was exiting the Stamford station I saw my shadow, finally, on eht stairwell. The sun was still pretty low. I recognized myself, for now, in that shadow. Beyond the shadow, through the windows of the stairwell, stood the enormous glass building that would be my office for some undetermined amount of time. I imagined seeing my shadow cast on that behemoth in the distance.