Every morning, for almost two years, I woke up in a room without sunlight. It was expected though. When you choose to have your room in the basement, you must accept things like that. But now, every morning I wake up with enough time to see the sunrise from a room well above the trees. A room from the fifteenth floor of the dormitory.

I was the first born, and then I was the first to go. “Long I was hugg’d close- long and long. Immense have been the preparations for me, faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me” (44). I know it is for the best. There is something that keeps telling me that I am on the right track. “I do not know what it is- but I know it is in me” (50). It tells me that all has a purpose, that this isn’t all for naught.

I ready myself each morning, collecting my self, my things, then heading out on the street. I have a short walk to the nearest subway, which is all part of the experience. Luckily for me, the trees are plenty and there is a garden along the way. Every morning I pass by planted trees, with birds who wait patiently for crumbs to be left behind. “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self contain’d. I stand and look at them long and long” (32).

I take the train from 96^th to 23^rd Monday through Friday. At every stop the subway sighs. Exhaling passengers to their destination and inhaling more for their journey. At every stop, there is a hesitation of the subway doors. It is the moment, where the platform persons prepare to board, and the subway riders prepare to leave. In that brief moment I know their impatient thoughts; “Unscrew the locks from the doors, Unscrew the doors themselves from their jams” (24), Release the tension kept stuck by closed doors!

And then the subway breathes and continues on its way.

To observe this is to realize that “there was never anymore inception than there is now, nor any more youth or age than there is now, and there will never be any more perfection than there is now, nor any more heaven or hell than there is now” (3).

It is not long before I reach 23^rd street station, and make my way to the college. That walk is my favorite. I take my earbuds out and, “now I will do nothing but listen” (26). The “sounds of the city, sounds out of the city, sounds of day and night….I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera. Ah this indeed is music- this suits me” (26).  Before I know it, I have arrived. As I head up the stairs to the Baruch building, “the past and present wilt- I have fill’d them, emptied them, and [now] proceed to fill my next fold of the future” (51). A building full of infinite opportunity.

I’ll make the same journey back to my apartment in the evening. When I arrive I am always tired, yet inspired. If I wait patiently enough, and watch night fall on all the city’s buildings, I’ll see the lights begin to turn on from every window, illuminating the city which never sleeps. It’s a wonderful transformation. A real life nightlight, all for me.

Then “I sleep- I sleep long” (50), and dream.