dRATS!

Okay not cool, not cool at all. I took the train, AGAIN. This time from 42nd street to 34th and caught the express Q to Brooklyn. Walked amid cat calls from cars to my friend Monique DeBose's farewell party. After an amazing a capella singing circle which included some impromptu spoken word from a NY school teacher, I was off to a party of someone that works at the United Nations. So instead of paying 25 in a cab from Brooklyn to gentrified Spanish Harlem, Rita a medical resident at the Brooklyn Hospital walked me to the 4, 5 train so I could take that to Harlem. No problem, right? RATS! I was the only one on the platform and I thought I was in the subway scene from the WIZ, where the walls start coming to life with that do do dooo do doo do music in the background. The rat was sizable, not the cat size that I heard about but sizable. He scurried towards me and was not afraid. I almost started running but I stomped my feet and he paused but not in the way I would have liked. Has somebody been feeding these guys? He was like a little dog wanting to nibble. He reluctantly went away but again, not fast enough.

After going to 86th street and switching to the 6 to 110th and Lexington I sat again to a woman and her cart and her man staring at me.

"You are beautiful!"

"Thank you"

"I love the pink in those shoes and I have the perfect nail polish for them, that color is all wrong"

She was right, the red I had did not match the shade of pink in my shoes but it did match the red in my dress and nothing I had on really matched. And besides, I don't match fingernail polish to shoes!

"I wish I had that nail polish I would give it to you. It would look good! You look good girl, look at you all dressed up" she sized me up as I did her. Definitely recovering or on drugs, definitely a hard life. I wasn't afraid but I was cautious. This is why I don't ride the train was the thought I had but at the same time she wanted to engage, I just wanted to make sure she didn't get off at my stop.

She went on to tell me that she had been in prison, been stabbed several times-which she showed me both on her neck and abdomen, once weighed over 300 pounds, had lost her kids and was trying to get them back, back in recovery after a drug relapse, was a punching bag for her boxer husband, was qualified for her first apartment that she got a 500 stipend to furnish it, that she to knew how to sit like me but didn't like to anymore and that kids used to beat her up when she was young because she was too prim and proper.

"You should write a book! I wish I had some money because I wanna do something with you!"

I said, really knowing that this is another reason I will be a star but then if I am a millionaire would I ride trains and have these random amazing encounters? Maybe I would do it once a month for good measure.

"I was working on a book! I am gonna write one but my computer got a virus because I was turning it on and off the wrong way and I lost everything, but there was an editor and I gotta get to a computer so I can find him again because I sent him all my stuff and I hope he has a copy" she languished with her New York/Spanish accent.

She then went on to recite poetry that bought tears to my eyes.

"I wrote that one in prison"she blankly proclaimed.

"How could you remember it so well?" I was curious.

"These are the ones that come from me, from my soul, they have meaning, that's how I remember, It's from my heart"

She went on to recite another one about the hold that drugs had on her and her pleads to God to free her from that grasp that kept her from everything she held dear. I have had the same pleas the same concerns the same questions as her and I felt her humanity in this moment. Though not drugs, the demon that she named crack has many forms and functions, be it food, drugs, cigarettes, men, bad luck...you get it. We all come here to move beyond something and this was her SOMETHING.

"You not from the city are you?" She already knew the answer.

"No Georgia" I don't know why I said this but I wanted to be from the place she thought I was from. New Jersey just didn't seem to fit. Why would I be so different if I was from New Jersey and to her I was different.

"Yeah, I can tell you haven't been through it like, me but we all have what we have that's why I don't make no excuses, we all go through stuff"

And indeed we do, I had a lot in common with the recovering crack head. My time came to get off the train and before I could say goodbye she said, "Maybe we will see each other again but remember you are a beautiful woman! I hope the best for you."

I wanted to hug her but thought to myself, 'Mattilyn lets not loose it!' So I just replied, "You are an amazing person, who are you?"

"I am nobody"

"No you are definitely somebody"

"I came up out of the cracks"

I thought of the rat coming up from the tracks onto the platform, making its presence known.

"You are definitely somebody" I repeated to her

"Nobody is better than anybody else"

"You are so right"

"God bless you"

"And God bless you"

"Take care"

"I will" and I was off in Spanish Harlem, being followed by a guy in red who I am sure I could have mothered and through the danky streets to an amazing Oasis in the hood, a rooftop party. Amid the chaos we all reside.

If I can do it in Japan I can do it in NY

Why the NY subway system intimidates me and not the Tokyo system, baffles me but after a bit of investigation it makes perfect sense. Once you get beyond the overwhelming sense of what the hizzy is that chicken scratch on the placards of Tokyo it starts to make sense. Underneath it all its in English explanation and the trains are color coded. I remember my very first train ride in Tokyo. I was going to Roppongi, Tokyo's gaijin capitol and Jayson gave me a play by play that I scribbled on a receipt and held onto like it was a winning lottery ticket. 1. Get to the station. Beck had helped out with that the first day. I thought I would never be able to get to the station alone, but I made it. 2. Take the train going towards Tokyo. CHECK. 3. Get of at Hatchoobori. CHECK ( sounds scarier than it is but you should have seen me peering out the glass like I was on a runaway train) 4. Get off and follow signs for the Hibya line which is the grey line 'just follow the signs' he told me. CHECK 4. Get on the train to your right, 'not your left' your right. right! CHECK. 5. GET OFF THE TRAIN in Roppongi!!!! OMG!!!!!! I felt like a kindergartner that had drawn a messy water color that mother says is amazing and you say "this is you mommy" I HAD MADE IT TO ROPPONGI!!!!!

I only managed to get lost in the scary sort of way 1 time during my 10 months in Tokyo. I was so comfortable on the trains I even started to fall asleep (be sure to watch my "Sleep Study" video. Trains in Japan became like second nature to me. I understood how to navigate my way and I felt at home on those "lines" (trains) and wandering the streets where I rarely saw a face that resembled my own. I smiled to myself as I bumped up against someone too close violating all spacial western rules. With my alien registration card I didn't belong yet belonged in this strange and beautiful place. I got a glimpse into what millions experience each year in America without any sensitivity from natural born citizens. The compassion and kindness of the Japanese was also noted...we don't do that. If I was lost 99% of the time there was someone willing and eager to help. Sign language, broken English or a learned English that they have been dying to use gets me headed in the right direction.

I have heard all to many times "SPEAK AMERICAN!!!!" coldly dished out to a frazzled foreigner trying to get to city hall in Philadelphia.

Note to those speaking to someone who doesn't speak your language: Speaking louder does not increase comprehension.

I am an east coaster. Have been to NY more times than I can count. But in the car with my family or on the bus and of late in a Taxi. I love the NY taxi's. I can practice my French, Wolof, Japanese or any other broken languages I have picked up through my travels with the mostly friendly cabbies. The doors don't open and close automatically like the ones in Japan but they have TVs and you can even pay with a credit card. I have rarely ventured into the dark subways of New York City alone. It feels massive and overwhelmingly scary. The police presence and my overactive imagination ignited by one too many movies like The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 have me spooked. Well, have HAD me spooked until Yesterday.

Yesterday I thought, "If I can do it in Japan surely I can do it here in the big apple." Credence, walked me to the tip of the station on 42nd Street. "Walk me down"

"You can do it, but make sure you don't get on an express train"

Now this I knew and understood. If you get on the express train from Tokyo going to Shinurayasu, you will end up 45 minutes from your destination. My friend Chris who is basically Japanese did just that a few weeks ago. Inconvenient. I took the mental note and remembered another time I took the wrong train...

I was scheduled to do PR in Up With People in Bree, Belgium for a couple of months. Cheeze Head was the name we coined Melissa Schmitz because she was from Wisconsin. We were leaving the cast in Denmark and had to make our way through Germany to Belgium. We had directions and we were clear. Get on the Slatzcushawziezenhouzer (I made that up) train and get off in Bree where our host families would meet us and we would begin our assignment. We didn't understand the garbled language but we saw the sign above the train and it said "Slatzcushawziezenhouzer" We get on the train as any educated traveler would do. We sat our asses down and that was that. We knew that our train ride was under 4 hours, so when the 5th hour slowly approached we got a bit nervous. Nervous in Europe is not as frightening as nervous in Asia or Africa. I don't know why but I just feel fine lost in Europe. My high school french was, well high school french. So when I approached the conductor she showered me with a smokey array of cigarettes and too much wine along with, 'learn to speak french' and 'you are on the wrong train'. How in the world could we end up on the wrong train, Melissa and I scratched our heads? Well the rude conductor informed us that the train splits and one part goes to the Flemish part of Belgium and the other to the French part a good 3 hours away and that we should get of at the next stop which wasn't really a station but a service stop and walk back to the station with our years worth of luggage and get on the right train. "AmerreeKans! she huffed"

I shuttered off all the memories and headed down the to the dark New York subway. I was gonna get to my audition by train. I was met with the hand of the conductor when I asked, "Is this the local or the express?"

"local"

Okay, Credence said to get on the local so I was on track. Sat my happy ass down, content with myself and watched for dear life. I couldn't read my book I had to watch. 34th Street, okay next should be 23rd.......ummmmm it's not stopping, okay it went to 4th. No problem, got off went to the other side of the station and got there on time. Then my traveling instincts kicked in, only I wasn't traveling anymore, just in a new place that I was determined to learn. What I learned yesterday is that even New Yorkers don't know exactly how to get cross town or uptown. And that NY has some friendly helpful people. After I took that train, I went from down to 16th street, then took the Queens train uptown, only I wasn't going to Queens so I got off at 63rd and Lexington, did my business there and after two people helped me, passed Al Sharpton (for real) and caught the Madison Ave. bus to 110th and Broadway in Harlem I was not certain where to get off the bus driver along with a Jamaican lady dressed in scrubs explained to me that the streets in Harlem where the same streets in Manhatten but some of them had different names. I got off at 110th walked down to 105th, had lunch with my friend and singer Monique DeBose at TOAST headed back on the subway to 86th Street and took the crosstown bus to Silva's. I was on a roll!

A person asked me one day, "how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Travel without fear"

Truth is I have anxiety almost every time I board a plane. My stomach does summersaults, I perspire and have heart palpitations. I get lost, frustrated,the things that can happen if you never leave your front door. The only answer I can come up with really isn't that profound if only in its simplicity. Once you get on the bus, plane or train its really not up to you. The mode of transportation is going to take you where it is headed. You do the leg work to make sure you are headed in the direction you wanna go. The rest is literally IN YOUR HEAD. No matter where you go, there will be people walking around, working, eating, kids playing, some kind of wild life, some kind of risk and some kind of adventure.

"You don't Do anything, you get on the plane, you fasten the seat belt and you hope for the best. When you get off the plane you are someplace else. "