Something Magical Happened on the A Train...

I sat on the A train. In the middle of the car. What followed was nothing short of God/ The Universe speaking to me as S/He always does. (Inclusive language is dope)

A white woman boarded. She seemed tired. Disheveled. Worn. Hair seemed greasy. She started to speak about her family's displacement since Hurricane Sandy. She was begging for change, for food, for help.

A Black man simultaneously boarded. He was bald. Tall, and older. Similarly seemed worn and disheveled. He also began to tell his story of displacement. Except, he had been displaced long before Sandy. He said he had been moving from shelter to shelter since he was 24. He begged for change, for food, for help.

Here's where the magic happened.

The Black man (I'll name him Roger) started to play his keyboard as an offering to the train. He played and sang.

The White woman (I'll name her Sarah) continued to tell her story to the train as he played.

Here I am, on the A train, sitting in the middle of this symphony of sorrow, a melody of missed moments... As Roger played his song, I felt like Sarah was almost spitting a freestyle of despair. Neither of them stopped their appeal to the A train for the other. Their sadness worked in chorus. Everyone on the train was confused. Did they not understand? Don't they know the rules of train-hustling? One person at a time! But I suppose, pain isn't polite. No one has time to let another have the floor. It was powerful.

It made me think.

Our country is a chorus. Some of us live the great soprano life, others live in that bass range. But somehow some folks get selected for a solo. Somehow, some folks are asked to direct the choir. And somehow, some folks get all the money after the Chorus album makes it to iTunes.

I don't think it was an accident that the two members of today's chorus were a White woman and a Black man. I think that was symbolic. I'm not sure how, or why, but I know there's something I'm missing about this image of these two people being cast out from their quarters, and the circumstances that brought them to these similar places.

Here's what I do know. Our nation is hurting. Unemployment, foreclosure, mental illness (and the associated stigma), the cradle to prison pipeline, few quality school choices, personal debt, national debt, lack of affordable health care and clean air, the lack of reasonably priced living.... We all live in this matrix of nonsense. I suppose that's why understanding intersectionality is so important to me. Because Roger, for me, represents what the evils racism does to a person over time. Sarah represents what the evils of misogyny and patriarchy do to a person over time. Perhaps Roger had some privilege as a man, and Sarah some privilege as a white person.... But sometimes these flashes of privilege are not even enough.

I like to think that when God is sending me a message that he doesn't speak like Morgan Freeman in this loud resounding voice. Instead, he places us in the right place and right time to receive a message. That was the A Train for me today.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please.