I stood firmly on the platform of West 116th Street, waiting for the A train to take me

downtown.

        Surrounded by chipping paint, dripping pipes, rats crawling the tracks, and gum-stained pavement, I looked around at the other people in my presence, who would soon be my fellow passengers.

         It was my last night in New York, and the summer air was crisp with a paradox of mourning and hope. I would miss the wonders of how we all came together in this moment and what stories each person passing held. It was in these wonders that I felt a breeze pass through and twirl my hair. As the headlights of the incoming train blinded me, the breeze grew into a gale.

        Like a bullet, the train came to a halt on the platform and made a harsh, screeching stop.

        I moved with the pace of the sleepy city and passed through the train doors. I sat on the powder-blue seats next to people I would never see again and fought back tears for my departure the next morning. It was time to say goodbye to the city.

        That’s when the train started back up, and together, we moved down the blocks of Manhattan. At around 56th Street, as passengers braided in and out of the car, I began to wonder about something that often came to my mind. It was a question of dreams—and if it was in the cards I had pulled to achieve them. I wasn’t yet sure what completely I was made for.

         It was a question that held off sleep. Which now, in my fleeing moments from the city, became my sole focus.

          I sunk claws into my psyche for blocks of tracks on this question. But as New York often does, it answered my questions and sedated my worries.

          It was then, as the doors clicked open on 23rd Street, that a man walked in with a guitar. I was not a stranger to this occurrence in the city. I

          If the subways were the great equalizer, then opportunity could be hidden anywhere. But no performance quite moved me like this one.

                       With a bag for tips hanging around one arm, the man began to play Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

         The slow strum of the C chord was sweet and brought to me a much-needed catharsis. His raspy voice paired in symphony with the notes from the instrument. As the chorus came back around, passengers on the train began to join in and sang along under their breath. I looked around and realized that, for the first time in my life, I was watching magic happen. 

        And so I joined in with the people around me. I sang low: There’s a blaze of light in every word / It doesn’t matter which you heard / The holy

or the broken

Hallelujah.

When the song ended, the air was still with the emotion that had been drawn from each person in witness. As the train came closer to 14th Street, the man started collecting tips. I imagined that in a past life, the man and I would have made art together. I tried to go up to him and tell him how moved I was. But instead, I just watched as he left, hoping, someday, to be graced by his art again.

        And as the train started up again, I had my questions answered. On my last night in New York, all this could be is an omen. To leave the dreary fields of the midwest and to return to the city.

        To leave tradition behind and take a chance on a jet plane. Finally, after blocks of riding the A train, I reached my destination on West 4th Street. I walked out, went up the stairs, and found myself in pouring rain on 6th Avenue. Rain was always what I had asked for to let me know if I was a great.

     So it was then, as everyone rushed into buildings and opened umbrellas, that I stood, watching my lovely city pass by, letting the rain fall on my hair:

The city had told me, and I knew, then, that I had made it.