A Few Words on Balance: Surfing the Subways Without Saying "Dude."
If you’ve ever ridden the subway with a small child, you’ll know that it’s quite the adventure.
As soon as you board the train, you better be prepared to surrender your smartphone, as we both know your Scroll-Through-Instagram-To-Avoid-Conversations-In_Elevators machine must now answer a desperate cry as natural as a baby’s wail: “Lemme See Your Games!” From here, there are several options. You’ll either proceed to watch a three-foot-tall being destroy you at Candy Crush, nod along and feign understanding of how they’re “gonna win next time they put three fire elements on top of the winter troll before he gained a diamond sword.” Or, a glance at your home screen will reveal an absolute lack of game-based entertainment, and you’ll end up making a dramatic desperate lunge to pry the device from curious little hands as they decide to open “Camera Roll.”
And that won’t be the end of it. Naturally, you’ll end up concocting an elegant answer to a loud “Oh my god, why is old the lady in a fancy suit picking her nose!” or trying to explain the oddly overbearing number of ads for an app that delivers E.D. medications to a creature that thinks her Barbie could get pregnant by kissing a LEGO figurine.
But, as an ex-five-year-old, my fondest memories of riding the subway (in the good ol’ days when arriving at your destination less than half an hour late wasn’t a rare enough occurrence to qualify as memorable) was subway surfing. Now, those of you who had l-train-less childhoods, or who haven’t tried to enjoy a Post Malone song while surrounded by 15 miniature humans on a school trip to the Coney Island aquarium, may not be familiar with the term. I’m not referring to the iconic coin-collecting, parkour-based phone game (which, oddly enough, a surprising number of suit-clad gentlemen seem to pull up whenever they hear the words “unexpected train traffic ahead of us.”) Nor am I referring to actual “subway surfing” - the risky stunt of riding while clinging onto the outsides of train cars. Dear MTA Officer, I’ve already seen 6 ads today that informed me that 168 people were struck by trains last year. We’re being safe here. Just, please pardon my language tip kingdom and the goddamn A train come - on time.
We’re talking about the subway surfing that is the art of riding without holding on to anything. Ideally with a wide-legged stance and arms stretched out to one’s sides. Long shaggy hair and abuse of the word “Dude” are optional but not required. A defiant, rebellious expression is recommended. It used to always be a competition. 5 points for every stop you stay balanced. Bonus points around steep curves and station entrances. Other scoring accommodations for screeching halts and long intervals of stillness. Yes, grabbing onto mom’s shoulder or a stranger’s sleeve counts as loss. It’s honestly great fun, and anyone who hasn’t tried it needs to get on, pronto.
Granted, this may have a decade ago, but has that much really changed as to make this activity obsolete? Add ten years, an iPhone, and access to Spotify. Subtract six to ten annual class field trips. I’d like to believe I’ve grown up a bit, atleast in a vertical sense. The trains are the same, just more delayed than ever. I think my local conductor’s gone bald, but that’s about it. At 7 AM, when a group of such surfers in matching day camp t-shirts get in formation, I’m sometimes tempted to roll my eyes and wait for one of them to grab the end of my ponytail to save himself. But, perhaps I oughtn’t. After all, they’re just trying to find, and keep, their balance.
As much as I’d like to say that my life is more so filled with Instagram-worthy Beetroot Lattes and cozy millennial-pink home offices with string lights, my days all start and end with my beloved tunnel town - rodents, dropped pizza slices, talented musicians and wannabe reverends included. Riding through life is a lot like riding a subway train. We all get on with an idea of where we’d like to end up and when we’d like to get there. And then things happen. We encounter detours. We experience what it’s like when there definitely isn’t enough room somewhere for all who want to be there. It can feel cold and lonely or get sweaty and kind of stinky. We discover unbelievable, unrecognized talent in the most unlikely places, and we sometimes have to cordially sit still while wishing the person next to us would, kindly, shut up. People will try to sell you things. People might try to buy your things (No, I can’t give you my shoes for 50 bucks! How am I supposed to get home?) People will ask you to step in and solve their relationship conflicts and will ask you to follow them on Instagram. Prices keep on rising for some reason.
But, most importantly, life will sometimes screech to a halt, making you wonder if things will ever move again, and then jerk and speed up when you least expect it to, or even want it to. There very often appears to be exactly zero light at the end of the tunnel. Or it’s there, and it’s the train you were supposed to be on, and you’ve been going in the wrong direction. There will be delays. Lots of delays. You probably won’t get where you’re going exactly when you wanted to, and that’s okay. You probably weren’t really expecting to anyhow. There will be a lot of jostling, bumps, and sharp turns, and there won’t always be something right there to hold onto. We just have to try to keep standing up and moving forward .
I don’t care if my phone case now holds a credit card and an ID that lets me buy a more exciting kind of fruit punch. I have no business condoning subway surfing - I’ve definitely far from mastered it. If anything, I might be best off telling the skort-wearing version of myself to get in all the practice as she can in staying upright while riding this whole life thing out (after criticizing her shoe choice, naturally.) Those kids off to Kumon or to after-school ballet are just looking for something I haven’t found yet. Like the stuffed Mammoth I lost at the zoo. Or an actual reason to put pumpkin in coffee. Or the key to being truly happy. Or, just how to keep my life in balance.
So, while I’ll say nothing about the video game or about riding the roof of the R train, you should really try subway surfing again. If anything, it builds up agility and strength endurance—just like balancing on a Swiss ball. It works out your core abdominal muscles (mainly transverse abdominus and obliques), inner thighs, glutes, quadriceps, and calves. You can even play around with interval training, or increasing surfing time by a station a day. If anything, you’re avoiding grabbing the subway poles, and during flu season it might be a preventative health measure. And you never know, the next time life takes a sharp curve or seems to slam to a halt, you might be a little better prepared to ride it out.
Photo Credits and a Huge “Thank You” to the extremely talented Miami photographer Swen Darvin Cubilette! Thank you for your creativity, will to see the magic or mornings, and for your patience with the balance of the photo! @unknownswenson (Instagram) https://swendc.com/
