I thought I had overcome the sensory overload I experienced so much when I go to new places. I don't like the unfamiliarity right off the bat. I don't like the ignorance I feel when I'm out of control of what I smell, see, and hear.

But the small Hispanic woman sitting next to me on the bus coming up from Baltimore reminded me of how much I miss out on if I close my eyes and ears to what happens around me. I quietly watched her as she pulled her tote bag down from the rack above halfway through the trip and pulled out a spicy chicken sandwich rapped in a single piece of foil. Carefully she peeled back the silver foil and took slow bite after bite. I couldn't see her eyes beneath her hair, and she didn't look around as she ate. The smell consumed all of our seat and the ones around it.

The black woman sitting a few rows in front of us toted a daughter dressed in a small frock-like school uniform. The mother darted her eyes to the back and then the front of the bus continually; she wore a hairnet all the trip up to New York and finally - at the end of the trip - pulled it off as if it were a clump of hair stuck in the drain she didn't want to pull out.

The lights outside of my room illuminate my desk and bed even at night. It's slight but always noticeable, and in the quiet at 3:00 in the morning I hear every siren outside and the mattress beneath me becomes harder on my sore back.

Tonight a vendor outside the Empire State building tried to sell me sugar-coated cashews. His accent lured me in, and I stood and talked to him for a while. His wife stood and watched our conversation - smiling without any words - but I knew she was thinking about our conversation because she graciously watched our conversation unfold.

The guard just inside the building smiled at me like dad-like men used to smile at me when I was younger and I wanted a piece of gum or something. He asked me how he could help me, standing chipper in his dark red suit. "I think you're the person I want to talk to."
"What? Well, I don't know about that." He smirked. He couldn't help me because he's just a guard. I wanted help from a man in a deep red suit. Alas.

The older girls who ask questions during class are quick to come up with good words and calm as the sea when they pose them to the speakers.

I don't want to ever give up getting overdosed by what I see or hear or smell.