Your Way to Work
Reflections of a Commute
Sebastián López Cardozo and Lauren Phillips
March 2023
The commute to your nine-to-five is an hour long and takes you from tram to subway to bus. You’re up at seven thirty, with the kettle going while you get dressed and pack your bag, gulp the coffee and grab a bite of whatever you find on the way out the door. The clock hits eight.
File taxes, finish article draft, do laundry... You type useful reminders on your phone as you wait for the tram. Fitter, happier, more productive… The cold gets to you, you close the notes app and pocket your device. It’s a long day ahead at work—I hope I will find the energy to do these things in the evening. Your job does not involve writing, but along with all the other things that consume your evening, you find time for it. You quickly take out your phone again: Useful, helpful, or full of insight… Is that why you write? No, that’s not it… To your east, the tramway tracks swell and recede with the land beneath it. You wonder when you will see the tram peek above the horizon.
Traffic and weather, escalators, and screens vie for your attention during the hour-long trek: You run, you stand, you sit. You like the job, and the commute is worth it, but you want something more. You want time for reflection—but perhaps more truthfully, you want meaning, and your commute is the one bit of unscripted time during your day where you can focus on whatever brings you that feeling, your evenings having been largely resigned to food preparation and general exhaustion. What if I did nothing—just sit with my thoughts… Of course you saw Manoush Zomorodi’s TED Talk on boredom and creativity, and you want to believe it’s true; but part of you thinks: If you stop moving, the wheels fall off.
Your bag is packed with tools for every occasion: A print journal or book for those times when you have poor signal and a predictable stretch; an e-reader pre-loaded with the day’s newspaper, good for most occasions; and a pair of earbuds for chaotic jostlings when you need your eyes free and a podcast might come in handy. Within a matter of minutes you’re on the tram. You try to gauge the journey and decide what tool might work best. Did I leave on time? Are there any transit disruptions? Is it raining, windy, or clear?
You arrive at the subway station. By now, you’ve made your selection. Once underground, it’s going to be difficult to get a signal, so hopefully you’ve saved a podcast episode ahead of time. If you’ve done a good job plotting your course, the subway will be the time where you get the longest and most stable chunk. If you’ve nailed it, you’ll get about thirty minutes when you’ll forget you’re on the train, on this commute, on your way to work. Other than momentary glances at the subway map to keep an eye out for your stop, the battle for your attention is settled.
Illustration by Irina Rouby Apelbaum for Architecture Writing Workshop.
Finally, you arrive at your stop, where you will transfer onto a bus, the final part of your commute. Now in the midst of the city’s bustling traffic and rush hour, there is no doubt about it: You will be standing on a packed bus for the next fifteen minutes. But you’ve prepared for this. Today it’s print: Herzog, a Bellow book. You’re already a good way into it, and so getting your attention back, even on the bus, will not be too difficult. It will all come down to physics: You shift your bag so that the bulk of it is in front of you, avoiding bumping into other passengers to your side or behind you, you rest your elbow on your bag, with the book held closely against your face. Your other hand clutches the grab bar tightly, and you stand with your feet at an open angle, in case of abrupt turns or breaking.
The difficult part is turning the page, but you’ve done this before: You hold the book half closed, the pinky gives some stability to the back of the book, and your thumb pushes down on the page, then slides and passes the page onto the index, and finally all fingers get back to their position on the next page.
You arrive at your stop and realize you’re seven minutes early. You linger near the building’s entrance. The sun is barely showing through the clouds, and the wind blows with strength. These seven minutes belong to you, and you spend them contemplating a passage you just read in Herzog:
Elbows on his papers, Moses stared at half-painted walls, discolored ceilings, filthy windows. Something had come over him. He used to be able to keep going, but now he worked at about two per cent of efficiency, handled every piece of paper five or ten times and misplaced everything. It was too much! He was going under.
