I’m on my way to DC to visit my sister, friend Cayley and dad, who’s up visiting as well for the weekend. I was going to ride with my roommate, who was supposed to take his car back this morning, but he couldn’t get off of work today, so I am taking good old bolt bus instead. Taking the bus early on Friday is waaaaay better than the afternoon, which is mostly what I’ve done before. I also accidentally discovered a new service from amtrak that is like, under 3 hours to DC. It’s just that it costs $140. Lame.

Anyway, not my point. So I had to wake up super early to get on the bus. And though I hate waking up early, once I am up, I actually really enjoy being awake early. There is so much promise to the morning. And I think because I so strongly correlate it with trips, it makes it even more exciting and happy. But I have noticed something else when I’m up really early in the city. My neighborhood is totally different. So I live in Williamsburg, which I think I’ve mentioned, but for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a neighborhood that’s gentrified more quickly than I think any other in New York City. It’s in Brooklyn, which has historically been looked down on by Manhattanites (excepting a few neighborhoods, very far from Williamsburg). But in the past few decades, it’s grown up quickly. I think with New York being safer, young people of means have settled into Brooklyn because it’s really close to Manhattan, very very easy to get to, and less expensive. Anyway. There are definitely still parts that are not great. But anything close to Manhattan has become prized. So where I live, there used to be mostly warehouses. The zoning laws changed i believe in the 90s, and since then, developers have been clamoring for space here. Really shittily timed with the recession though, so you have buildings like mine, where the entire building was supposed to be 1 bedroom luxury apartments, but the landlord couldn’t rent them out to single people or couples, so most of the building has been converted to 4 bedrooms. Yes, I live in what is technically a 1 bedroom apartment that has been converted into a 4 bedroom. There was a “study” that got walled off to be a bedroom, the master and the living room each split into two rooms. And there’s your 4. There are two bathrooms, but one is off of one of the rooms. So it ends up being 3 people sharing one bathroom, one person with their own.

Tangenting. Sorry about that (though, have you met me??). So usually I leave for work around 8am, which I think it pretty standard. New York tends to wake up late, stay up late. The train is always extremely crowded (sometimes I have had to wait for a second train. Seriously), and everyone is middle-class looking. They may look hipster, but more or less they look like they’re going to work in some kind of white-collar or artsy profession (does that have its own color? If not, might I suggest red? Too communist?). And it is so crowded. Have I mentioned how crowded it is? So when I have gotten up early, it is rare, but it happens, I notice a very different class. On the up side, the train is way less crowded earlier. But also the people on the train are more of construction workers, and people who look much more working class. I am reminded that there are poor people in my neighborhood. And I’m actually less surprised by that than that I don’t see them otherwise. The other time I’ve noticed this is in the middle of the day. I’ve occasionally had to travel during the day to a different site or something. And it’s like, woah! Totally different people. I just find this fascinating–people are not just separated by class by where they live, but also by what they are doing when. You can live next door to someone and not even realize it. I think about this as I listen to Robert Reich’s book, Aftershock, which discusses the economic meltdown, but more importantly, inequality. I’ve read a lot about inequality in the past few years. One of the more surprising things about it to me is that people in America just don’t notice it as much as I feel like they should. And the more I’ve worked where I’ve worked, lived in different neighborhoods in NYC, etc, the more I realize that people of means stay away from poverty because it’s uncomfortable, and then they’re blind to it, and don’t realize that it’s people who live in poverty. Children. Families. People just trying to live their lives.

I believe that us being separate greatly contributes to inequality. People living in poverty also have such a bizarre idea of rich people. They, too, see them as a different species, almost. They do not see themselves ever really being stable. They don’t even understand what that means. It’s frustrating, because obviously gentrification isn’t the answer. It prices people out of their homes, displaces people who are already vulnerable. But we can’t keep living such separate lives. People with power and money have to find ways to connect with others on a one to one level to feel empathy or sympathy for people living in poverty. And those living in poverty must learn to see a future for themselves that involves responsible use of money, and have opportunities to attain that. It’s just that if you don’t even know that’s a possibility, or what it looks like, how can you move towards it? How can you direct your children toward something with which you have no knowledge? How do we increase equality? I’m still struggling with this. I’m sure I will for a long time to come.