On Being Green

Tomorrow on July 18th, there will be a whole new reason to line up at Whole Foods. As if the lines at Whole Foods weren't long enough, the debut of the market's new "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote by accessories designer Anya Hindmarch might just draw the line out all around my favorite Columbus Circle haunt. Since Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio came out of the environmentalist closet (yoohoo -- Ralph Nader, anyone?), it's now hip to be green. And it seems even hipper to cash out on this trend. I will admit -- I've been eyeing the advert for the Whole Foods tote for the past two weeks, and I am indeed making plans to get up early just to buy some unnecessary groceries so that I might be able to have the tote, too. Why not? WF is limiting the bags to 3 per customer (and $15 each), and this anticipation of customers rushing the registers must mean that the bags are going to be trendy, right?

Grocery shopping is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have a small collection of non-disposable grocery bags that I take with me every time I shop. I use these totes partly for environmental reasons, but I have them mostly because they afford much more room to pack in groceries than do the plastic bags, and I can sling them over my shoulders. This last bit is important for pedestrian New Yorkers on a budget like me who have to take the subway or bus with a week's worth of groceries, and then cart said groceries up five flights of stairs without help. So with neither an elevator nor a grocery-toting-Knight-in-shining-armour to help me up the stairs, the "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote (which appears to be much larger than the ones I have now) is something that I will get up early for tomorrow morning. It's practical and -- apparently -- stylish.

The funny thing about carrying groceries around in New York is that people rarely offer any help. This past Sunday afternoon, I was making the trek from Whole Foods to my front door when one of my lazy, stoop-sitting neighbors looked up at me and said: "Someone must loooove you!" I couldn't really decipher what he meant; wasn't I the one carrying the groceries on my shoulders like a Sahara Desert camel? Did he think that there was someone awaiting my return home who would cook me a meal from these environmentally-friendly grocery bags? And if there were -- wouldn't he have been carrying them with me?

And why didn't the stoop-man offer to help me around the corner?

The way people respond to a grocery-carrier on the New York subway is rather peculiar to me: rather than move around or offer a seat or (heaven forbid) a bit of help, people become nervous and irritated at the sight of someone taking up excessive space. I sometimes get looks that read aggravation, pity, amusement, or even: "Why didn't you just take a cab?"

It is in moments like that when I feel very green myself. I'm carrying environmentally-friendly bags, pounds of organic produce, I'm navigating my quarter-life-crisis in "the real world" and I'm jealous of those who do take cabs without taxi-guilt, or better yet -- of those who get their groceries delivered for an extra charge, no delivery time guaranteed (but that's okay because they live in a doorman building).

I love the subway in general, and there are moments that make the grocery run through the subway worthwhile. Much in the spirit of In the Metro by French anthropologist Marc Augé, I tend to look at my subway ventures to Whole Foods and back as an ethnological adventure. Or -- with a less academic tone -- a chance to look at human psychology. The subway has a code of conduct: don't look anyone in the eye; observe people through your peripheral vision; give up your seat for the elderly, the pregnant ladies, or for pretty young women; warn tourists that the 2/3 express train does not stop at Columbia University (but rather, at Mamma's Fried Chicken); hold on to the pole and pretend that you won't get germs. One would think that helping with groceries might be included in this list, but it isn't for good reason: why trust a stranger with your organic produce?

With all of these rules and regulations (some suggested by the MTA, most just simply understood) comes another kind of code that I can hardly decipher myself. The glance across the car, the lingering bump on a crowded subway, looking up from a newspaper or a book, moving down the car to share a pole, an accidental slip of the hand, the taking out of iPod headphones; these are all the little indicators of Subway Romance, the most enigmatic, ephemeral and exhausting type of romance I have yet encountered in New York City.

I found my solemate on the subway. And then I lost him at 66th street, probably to a rehearsal at Juilliard, or worse yet, to a date at the Metropolitan Opera. And then I am resigned to continue on to 59th Street Whole Foods, and on the way home I'll run into yet another solemate who inevitably gets lost somewhere between the stops on the Upper West Side.

Sometimes this understanding of togetherness-but-for-another-stop is often just a figment of my imagination, but sometimes it is reciprocated. And then the game begins -- glance, read, glance, move down the car, bump, oh I'm sorry, smile, it's okay (bump me again), take out the iPod, makes his way to the door, look back and make eye contact through the glass, and as the subway slows we realize that no, we're not getting off at the same stop, and we don't even say goodbye.

Last week I was making a grocery run home in the evening after work, trying to read "On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan and balance two overflowing Whole Foods bags between my ankles. At 72nd street, the train filled up with suit-clad men and women transferring from the express train from Downtown and Midtown Manhattan. I maintained my turf in the middle of the train, and people miraculously gave me space to harbor my groceries. As we pulled into 79th street station, I felt a hand just at the small of my back where I had been leaning against the pole. I turned to find a tall, dark, handsome creature of the subway, tie askew, just coming home from work, spying down into my grocery bags. He shot a quick and timid smile, then turned back to his Stephen King mass market paperback. And then he turned back again to look at the book I was reading as I spied at his. Again catching eyes, we acknowleged the mutual curiosity. Our mutual curiosity.

But what to do? I'd never read a word of Stephen King, I don't know the horror genre, I've never even seen a screen adaptation of a King book, so I couldn't ask about the book. Should I ask him if he lives on the Upper West Side? Too lame. Ask where he's coming from? Work, clearly. Ask for help with groceries? No, the bags were my conversation piece, and an easy one for him to latch on to: "That's a lot of bags you have there, where are you getting off, want some help?" This would be the easy way for him to start conversation. But no, he was the shy-and-curious type, and I though I consider myself a seasoned subway rider, I'm still green when it comes to the art of the subway pickup.

And he only stayed on for one stop. As he made his way to the door, he stepped around and too close to me, and then shot a wide-eyed look and a hint of a smile through the dark, mirror-like window of the subway door. The subway slowed in the station, and I contemplated getting out too and walking the extra blocks home. I knew that this would accomplish nothing, especially with the groceries. Our romance was limited to thirty seconds and seven blocks. When the subway finally stopped, he gave me an extra moment to reconsider as he paused at the open doorway, discreetly twisting his neck to look behind him. But this wasn't my stop; it was his. He stepped off the subway and disappeared, and I stood clear of the closing doors.

While most just slip away, some Subway Romeos actually do succeed in breaking the barrier of space and silence: What are you reading/listening to? Where are you headed? Here, have my seat. You go to Columbia? And my personal favorite (in the dead of winter when I was wrapped up in scarves): You look like you're going to hijack the train -- can I have your number?

No way, my arms are full of groceries in environmentally-friendly tote bags, can't you see?


Author's Note: I didn't end up getting one of the bags. I woke up the morning of July 18 to a thunderstorm and an email from Naomi urging me to get down to Whole Foods immediately: "my mum just said that a supermarket here had been selling those bags
for ages, and people were queueing up at 4am!!" I ran to 59th street, splashing through puddles and jumping across subway cars, only to find a big sign at the Whole Foods entrance that read: "BAGS SOLD OUT!!" Apparently the bags had sold out in one hour (which meant that when I left my house at 9am, they were already sold out). Whether naïvely inexperienced, jealous, or environmentally-friendly -- I guess this proves that it really isn't easy being green.