on public transit as a passenger princess
confessions from a directionally challenged girl in the big city
traffic in jakarta looks like this: green helmeted ride sharing motorcyclists; ivory trucks oxidizing into red and bronze; and open-door busses with people packed in like sardines. but jakarta’s roads mostly consist of motorbikes and private cars, many of which have chauffeurs in the driver seats.
note for the uninitiated: it’s not uncommon for middle and upper class families in third-world countries to employ household help—housekeepers, au pairs, chauffeurs, etc.—many of whom live with their employers, are paid a comfortable living wage net of rent/utilities/meal expenses, and grow to become essential pillars of the family.
my driver (hi, pak sigit!) has stuck with my family since the end of elementary school, and has seen most of my adolescent life play out: he’s seen my crushes, my enemies, and my first kiss, in the backseat, at fourteen, during heavy traffic at sunset—yes, it was romantic albeit awkward, and i cringe at the thought that the poor man had to witness that.
because of pak sigit’s expertise and experience, i never had to worry about the hows of getting places. all i had to do was get into the backseat and he will take me where i needed to go. no pulling up directions, no getting lost; just me, him, and the car, weaving between the hustle and bustle and the roar of everyday life.
so imagine what happens when this passenger princess™ is transported to new york city years later.
a city where people drive like raging bulls in a stampede, are hit by electric bikes that don’t understand traffic laws, and succumb to $30+ ubers to return home from their adventures.
the result is the internal compass of a plankton. or, in non-metaphorical terms, a directionally-challenged twenty-three-year-old girl.
the summer of 2016
the first time i took new york’s public transit—and really any public intracity transit without my parents—was when i took a three-week long high school summer program at columbia university.
one night, i went downtown to get dinner with some girls in my program. we took the 1 train back to campus and—engrossed in conversation—missed our stop, getting off at an unfamiliar neighborhood after dark. though one girl could navigate us home, i remember trailing behind the group, the lacking street lights contributing to the spooky disorient while the safety lecture from orientation echoed between my ears, ignore strangers! don’t make eye contact! don’t take pictures!
as expected, nothing happened to our group, but the anxiety that bludgeoned my passenger princess™ psyche skyrocketed. i didn’t leave my dorm room that night. and when i returned to the city six years later, i chose to walk 30+ blocks instead of taking the train, just to make sure i wouldn’t get lost.
this fear was what soured, and undoubtedly hindered, my relationship with public transit, wherever i was in the world.
a day in a life of a directionally-challenged plankton girlie 🧚🏻♀️
i learned, within the first few weeks of moving to the city, that i could not simply sustain myself on cabs and ubers—not just for their ridiculous price points, but largely because traffic in the city is so horrendous that it often takes longer to take a car instead of the train.
i also learned that, thanks to its numbered street grid, manhattan is friendly to us plankton. moving through the city is like a video game: head south to travel from 42nd to 34th street; head east to travel from 8th ave to 5th; take the downtown train and you’re southbound; take the uptown train and watch the street numbers swell with each stop.
but i’m not here to educate you on the new york city transit system, neither is this post by any means an aubade to the mta, because god knows the mta has its own slew of problems. i’m here to tell you that even if you aren’t naturally born with an internal compass, you can become decent at anything you set your mind to, whatever your motivations may be.
i never thought that one of my goals in life was to be directionally adept, but when my training ground was a numbered street grid that no one could fuck up, this plankton brain had no choice but to grow smarter.
“Tasha is very knowledgeable about the subway stations in her area.”
—Timothy L., a born-and-bred New York apologist who migrated to New Jersey
my confidence is at a place where i’m now capable of stalking google maps whenever i visit new places. and i’m happy to report that, while on vacation with my family last december, i was the one with the directions, leading the way.
conquering old age fears
in new york, getting lost can have its perks. whether it’s spotting a new dimsum restaurant, a tiny dog wearing a fendi jumpsuit, or even a street performer singing take me home, country roads on the L train to brooklyn—there is something for everybody between the streets and avenues of new york city.
the best days i’ve had here were when us friends chose to wander, to explore, to intentionally get lost. this concept applies to my writing, too: some of my best writing is birthed from mistakes or scrapped ideas or lines that spoke to me when i read in the middle of the night.
i’ve been trying to teach myself how to be spontaneous, how to take ideas in as they come, and not be too rigid in my stubborn ways. sometimes it’s nice to let loose, to let the weekend go where it wants to take you, to seize opportunities as they come. even if that means skipping train stops or taking that job you didn’t expect to fall in your lap or free-writing your biweekly newsletters based on a singular idea (guilty as charged).
and if you ever feel lost, keep some map-savvy and well-intentioned people around, so you can always rely on them to lead the way.
thanks for stopping by,
<3 tasha