I glance and sometimes smile
at that person
in the seat across the way,
wonderin'
who are you
and
where are you
goin'?

If you're like me, you ride the subways of this city and walk its streets at varying hours of the day and night. I'm one of the ones who teeters between having and not having a fixed work schedule (I do it for stability's sake, but hate the chains), who works almost every day of the week, and tries as she might to socialize and get a little late night fun in before its time to punch in, sign on, and show up to work again, whether on a Saturday or a Monday night. And although I have only been a New York resident taxpayer for a few months, I've seen this city in many of its phases. Whenever I think about the way we live, I'm reminded of the novel The Truce, by Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti. In it, he speaks of the cities within the city of Montevideo, and reflects on the members of each make its way through the day, unconscious of their fellow citizens, with whom they rarely come in contact. Regardless of our often self-absorbed public mannerisms, I believe that we all are observers of daily routine, and are fascinated by others reasons for waking up in the morning, afternoon, or night, and with why we travel on the paths we do.

Look at it this way. Step onto the subway in the morning and you'll see the sleepy-eyed faces of the early morning waker-uppers. Businessmen, teachers, students (those who clean their cubicles, lounges, and classrooms have already continued the work started the night before), government workers, cooks, and a host of others mount the cars with blank, bored faces, some with slight grins, especially from those who are actually on their way home, filled with remembrances of last night's naughty dreams and realities. In the late morning hours, you might see the elderly women who spend their days window shopping and visiting doctors offices, and young and old welfare recipients searching for work, and reporting for unemployment duty. The elderly men usually come out a little later; some to lounge in a local bar, some just to wander away from the four walls they are bound to. Then, when early afternoon sets in, loud, misbehavin' children crowd the cars, exchanging cracks and embarrassing their friends in front of a reluctant and exhausted but open-eared audience. We find ourselves listening to their school-dazed banter half annoyed, half nostalgic.

In the early evening, the tired folk from the early morning hours race home to pick up the kids, dinner, and their energies to deal with family life. Later on in the evening, the second shift of maintenance workers, and the first shift of late night bartenders, waiters, dancers, musicians, club workers, and club goers start to show their faces, prepared to face their own morning in the city, while so many are setting with the sun. On any given evening at nine o'clock you might see a beautiful, gum-smacking woman with her makeup done up to perfection, wearing glistening silver hair clips that form a crown around her head. We watch and wonder where she is going, men and women staring at her with a look of can-I-come-with and she-looks-like-prostitute, respectively. And lets not forget the tourists, who crowd the trains as we approach 42nd street, their faces taking on a look of excitement and anxiety cloaked in faux harshness. And as we wander through the city's underground town, complete with its own set of rules, we can hear the sounds of soldiers, drumming, break dancing, singing, living outside of the rest of the world, and only for their craft. They come out at all hours: students with no other place to practice, immigrants selling their wares out of boxes and bed sheets, mimes, fiddlers, and mariachi guitarists. What would the city be without its flavor?

Late at night (or early in the morning, depending on your point of view), you never know who may be around, and much of the masses don't get even a glimpse of this city. The club goers havent gone home yet. Homeless men and women cherish the quiet night to settle into a moving shelter, lulled to sleep by the digital voices of a chipper couple, door chimes, and the squeaking of the cars wheels along the tracks. This, for so many, is the feared city, the unpredictable city, the city of grim reaper-like figures that hide the faces of people you may have smiled at earlier in the day. For those who hang on to the night, their attitudes change too. They are fearless and strong, and make their way through the streets in clothes that only serve this purpose. Many of those who hang onto the night do it in secret, for when its time to start the day again, the last thing they want is to alter the created image that others have of them.

Benedettis nostalgic and reluctant main character ponders this concept, wondering which city he will be a part of as his imminent retirement approaches, unsure and fearful of the metamorphosis from a businessman to just a simple, free man who feeds pigeons in the town square. He makes a wonderful observation in the fact that as lifestyles and economic status change, so do the cities we move in. Through all of this however, the city remains the city. We change for it, to live in it, survive it, and I as all of us ultimately remain our true selves, no matter the physical and social uniforms we dress ourselves with. Seldom do we associate with the residents of cities other than our own, although we may run into each other at the corner store, remember that we had once crossed paths, nod our heads if anything and go on our way, off into our own personal city, the one of one who is alone in a city of millions.

Originally from Baltimore, Sharon Benson is a translator and editor, graduate of Villanova University (and survivor of the infamous "Flying Coffin" train), and currently a graduate student at the University of Puerto Rico.