We really need each other

bell hooks is right

Me at the mic last night. I took a screenshot of the mics’ Instagram stories.

Yesterday I left my apartment for the first time in a week and I didn’t anticipate how excited I’d be to be around other people. I walked into the subway station and got this immediate euphoric wave of joy just having people in proximity to me. Now if you have never been in a subway station, euphoria is generally not a word people associate with the damp underground tunnel. When the train arrived, I walked in, sat down, and I didn’t pull out my phone. Usually my head is buried in some cat video, but today was a different day. Being around other humans made me lose complete interest in my phone. I didn’t want to doom scroll on Twitter. I wanted to look at these lovely people. I wasn’t staring because it’s still New York, but I let myself sneak a few glances at my fellow humans around me.

In the midst of my journey I made the mistake of switching trains thinking that doing so would get me to my destination faste…