Into The Rabbit Hole

I had an unusual experience driving home from work yesterday.

I’m sitting on 8th Avenue, waiting for a light to turn green. I hear a man screaming as loud as he can, hooting and hollering. Singing, if you will. Serenading.

“Well that’s a bit odd,” I think to myself.

Sort of peeking around, I see no pedestrians staring up at a balcony, with no swooning girl looking down at him in bewilderment.

I see no ragged beggars on the corners seeking attention. No Jehovah’s Witness men on bicycles touting Jehovah’s Word. No jousting actors fighting for a dramatic end.

“This hooter and hollerer must be a driver,” I conclude. I mean, what other logical explanation is there?

To my astonishment, it WAS a driver. And as he drove past me, I realized he was hooting and hollering at me.

Blood rushed to my cheeks even in the ninety degree weather. He’s looking at me, driving next to me shouting, “You’re BEAUTIFUL! I love you! I love beautiful people!!!!”

Certainly I’m not the only person to have noticed this odd behavior. Everyone is now checking me out as they pass me.

He continued to holler at me as 8th Avenue dumped into 6th. He weaved in and out of traffic to prove his masculine ability to drive like a crazy (in love) man.

Finally, I gasped for air and realized I had been holding my breath when he exited 6th on Wadsworth. I had been nervous that he was going to crash demonstrating how beautiful I am to him.

*blows the manic/drunk/weird guy kisses goodbye*

Last night I went back and read some of my favorite pieces.

For some of you who are unfamiliar with my past work, you can click on the categories on the right and find some great stuff in there.  I think we all go through ups and downs where we’re better at expressing ourselves than others.

Check out my people watching compilation.

So, I don’t want you to pick up and head out of here, but this lady found me, and she’s got the same looking blog as mine, and, well, she’s WAY funnier than me.

I thought you might like to check it out.

Here’s the kicker though:  You can’t leave me.  Yes, her page looks as nice as mine.  It’s almost creepy to see my theme up in someone else’s blog.  Yes, she’s funny.  And you just can’t help but want to read more of what she writes.

BUT YOU LOVE ME!!!

Okay, carry on.  Just make sure you know whether you’re reading hers vs. mine.    It would be very easy to think you’re on my page and really be on hers.  And she doesn’t care to discover any of our little amusing secrets.

She drew a steaming bath, lit some candles.
Classical music streamed from the tiny black radio.
She undressed, and stepped gingerly into the water.

Slowly, she slid back into the warm wetness.
The water rose up very close to the top of the bathtub.
She sunk deeper and deeper into the depths, releasing all of the energy from the day.

I like the way her hair swirls under water.
Air bubbles swam their way around her body up to the surface, leaving tiny ripples.
She smiled as she listened to the sliding sound they made as tiny bubbles escaped her ears.

Within only minutes, she was dreaming, swimming in an ocean, dancing in the moonlight.
She was flying across the country, waving a magic wand and granting wishes.
Undetectable salooops of sound waves were amplified as she wiggled her fingers in a fan across her belly.

After a few minutes, she straightened her legs and pushed herself upwards.
A gasp for air, she let in a full gulp air, exhaling microscopic droplets of moisture.
She gently leaned back with her neck resting against the hard cold porcelain of the tub.

She looked at her fingers, she investigated her toes.
She touched her sticky soft skin from her neck to her thighs.
She laid there and let go.

The concerto on the radio was Bach.
The water was just the right temperature.
The look on her face was bliss.

A blind man rode the bus home with me yesterday.  And by, “with me” I mean he was on the same bus as I, and I watched him.  I tried not to stare, not for his benefit as much as for the benefit of the other people around me. 

Depending on how long he’s been without vision, his other sensory perceptions are significantly enhanced.  He looked like a professional blind man, so I presume that he did in fact have the heightened sense of smell and hearing.  He could identify the people who stood in front of him or who walked past him.  He could judge how big they were by the sound of their footsteps as they walked by, whether they were a man or a woman (men and women inherently smell different), what their age was, how long it had been since they showered, whether they had had sex that day… and probably an entire list long of identifying characteristics that many people would never care to use as reference to know who and what is around them. Read the rest of this entry »

There was a woman on the bus yesterday who caught my eye.  She sat at the front of the bus, and was on it when the driver began his route. She had shown him her half sheet of paper, presumably with directions on it.

She didn’t speak a word of English, only had her half sheet of paper.

I think she may have been eastern, but I’m not sure.  I didn’t see her face, just her covered head and her cream-colored sheet-like clothing.  I don’t know what they call this garb, so I’m going to have to stick with that as a description.

When we got to Downing, the bus driver turned around and told her that this was her stop.  She shook her head, “no.” He insisted that this was her stop, and that this is what her half sheet of paper said.  She continued to sit there, shaking her head, “no.”

The driver waited a minute longer and then said, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you, then.”  He continued his route. 

She waved the paper at another man who was sitting across from her. He read it, and said, “It says Downing.  He tried to tell you.  Downing was back there,” and he thumbed the direction of the back of the bus.   Of course, she had no idea what he said, so she continued to sit there as he handed the paper back.

I wondered what she would do.  I couldn’t tell her to get off the bus now, cross the street, and take the other bus back to Downing.  I felt bad for her.  Can you imagine being in another country, not speaking a word of their language and trying to ride their transit?  What if I got off on the wrong exit?  What if it was in a bad area?  I kept thinking about this as we inched closer and closer to Aurora.  I felt bad, really bad.  But I had no idea if I could do anything to help this poor woman.

So I sat there.  Rode the bus like I did every morning.

Eventually she got off.  I think it was at Kramaria or so.  Waaaay far away from Downing.  Goddess, I prayed for her.  What if it had been me?  Would I have hoped that some kind soul would take me under their arm and point me in the right direction?  *exhale* I felt guilty for not doing this for her.  I didn’t know what else to do, though. 

So, I watched her as our bus left her standing in a parking lot outside of a pawn shop.  She looked frightened. 

Who the hell would put a woman like this on a bus??  Did they really believe that she could find her way to where she was going? Did they explain to her what to do if she went too far?  I know I wanted to blame someone for their stupidity because I felt so bad that I didn’t help her.

I should’ve done something. 

I “met” Joshua on the morning bus out to Aurora.  I had been riding the bus for many months, and eventually began to recognize the regulars.  Joshua particularly stuck out: he was blonde with a buzz cut, had glasses, always wore the same Avalanche jacket, and a contagious “Hi! How Are You?! GOOD Morning!!! Pretty good, thanks! It’s going pretty good. How are you?! Pretty good so far, thanks!” The repetitive nature of his morning greetings were almost ritualistic, entirely child-like, and it was apparent that he had been blessed with some sort of retardation, though even after seeing him every morning, it’s still difficult to know which sort.  I liked Joshua enough, he was friendly, if nothing else.  Sweet, warm-hearted, even if not the brightest man on our trip… Shortly after I started noticing Joshua, I began to notice the young woman whom he had taken a liking for. 

She was in her mid-twenties, also blonde, slightly pretty, and I noticed that she began riding the bus regularly right around the same time as I started noticing Joshua.  At first, she, like many other of the regulars, smiled uncomfortably at his greetings.  After the second or third day, though, she began to smile more warmly.  I think she realized the innocence behind Joshua’s boisterous greeting. 
Not long after these early morning interactions began, it became more and more obvious how taken Joshua was with this young woman.  He would pout if he didn’t get a seat right behind her.  As people got off the bus, he would slowly move on the next seat available between where he was sitting and where she was sitting.  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s an adventure twice a day, every day of the work week.  I ride all the way out to Aurora on the Colfax bus and then all the way back to downtown. 

People are so fascinating to me.  I can’t get enough of people watching.

Yesterday, the bus driver had to stop the bus.  One kid, who was blatantly a punk to begin with (I know this because I watched him spit out his peach and throw the half-eaten pit on the ground behind the bus stop, even though the trash can was no more than four feet away from him), but he gets on the bus and decides that it’s appropriate to listen to his music on his cell phone.  There’s a “rule” about music on the bus, and it is that you don’t play it.  You can listen quietly to your iPod or what not, but you shouldn’t have it playing to where other people can hear you.  He was playing his music the entire ride. 

Well, one younger guy got on the bus and didn’t like that this kid was  playing his music; it was against the “rules.”   So he went up to the driver to complain about it.  The driver stopped the bus!  He went to the back of the bus and inquired about who had the radio.  It almost started a brawl between the patrons who were pissed that the guy complained and made the bus driver stop versus the guy who complained because “we have plenty of obnoxious people on the bus as it is and we don’t need another punk playing music!”  Several of the people who were pissed off about having the bus stopped kept throwing out, “We don’t give a Fuck about Rules!”  It’s true.  They don’t.  There are a whole new set of rules for riding the Colfax bus.  I’ll tell you them:  “There are no rules!”

Oi vey.  It was pretty amusing.  I had been chatting with this very young teenager up until then; she initiated the conversation because she saw my Children’s Hospital pin on my backpack.  “You work at Children’s?!” she asked.  So we talked about everything she could think of.  It’s a nice place to work, and I love the positive attention it brings to me.  I love my job!  I was able to be a temporary mentor to this young lady, and I loved every minute of it.

Eventually, the bus got to its last stop: my stop.  Another woman got off of the bus with me, and she & I began chatting, too.  It’s a wonderful way to meet new people to watch.  People fascinate me.

One of these days I’ll get paid to be fascinated by you all.  In the mean time, I’m just having fun practicing!

Repeat after me:

I trust that everything will be all right.  Magnificent.  Marvelous.

Even if it sounds like a lie.  I must trust.

I watched a bird die yesterday.  All of us humans watched it, flailing, fearful, and dying.  I think its wing was broken, maybe its spine.  I don’t know if it was hit by the bus I was riding– maybe it flew into the bus at full speed. I don’t know how it came to be upon its deathbed, but everyone’s attention to it drew my eyes towards it as well.  There was a man standing outside, only feet away from it, holding his four year old daughter’s hand.  She watched the bird flap around, wondering if it was going to die.  The father did nothing to protect his child from seeing this.  He just held her hand and watched with her.

She looked up at him, with tears in her eyes.  “Daddy?” I read her lips.  “Are you ready to go now?” he asked her.  She nodded, and they walked away.  I looked back at the bird, and it was lying on its back, its eyes glazed over.  I don’t know if someone put it out of its misery or if it finally just laid on its back and accepted its fate.

We all die someday. 

I could hear others on the bus with me crying out, “Put it out of its misery!” Some shook their heads and looked away.  Some couldn’t help but watch the last dying moments of this simple creature.  It was sad to me, so I forced myself to watch how everyone reacted.  One woman even crossed herself in the name of the Father. 

We all react differently to this experience.  We have our thoughts and fears about death, our hopes and dreams about life, and somewhere in between those hopes and fears, lies our attitude about everything.

It is the simple fact that eventually we all must die that guides us in every aspect of existence, whether we’re aware of it or not.  Somewhere, we must take on a perspective, a consolation, or an allowance for our own mortality, and in doing so, we embrace an entire attitude about life. 

When we are Aware of its significance, we must choose our perspective.  We must choose our attitude…  And in doing so, our entire lives unravel before us.  Revealed in our awareness is the life we watch through a lens of our perception of how life IS.

I choose to trust.  It may sound like a lie sometimes.  It may seem ridiculous.  But I choose to trust because I don’t like the other choices which are fear, worry, and pain.   I choose to trust because it seems to be the choice that feels best.  I might be a dreamer, and some say I have my head in the clouds, and I agree sometimes.  But that’s my choice, and I embrace it.

I awake to find myself on the bus.  It is crowded here.  People stare at me, the white woman, finding herself there, on the back of the bus, wondering how the hell I got there and where we are all going.

There is an ebb and flow of people, getting on and off at each stop.  I can’t see the street names.  I look around to orient myself, but the signs are all fuzzy, and I don’t recognize the buildings. 

Being sober has a strange effect on me.  I am in and out of surreal experiences, waking up in places, not knowing how I’ve come to be where I’m at.  I can never tell if I’m dreaming.  My lucidity is shot.  Maybe it’s because when I am putting intoxicants in my blood I am actively aware that I need to remain aware of what’s happening.  Maybe.

So this is what life is like.  I peer down the aisles of the bus, watching the knees of the other patrons moving in and out of the center as people slide in, standing room only, finding their place amongst strangers.

There are glimmers and flashes of light poking their heads through the skylights, and with each flash, I am blinded, catching myself having memories that I don’t remember– memories I don’t own.

Being human is so difficult for me sometimes.  So this is what it’s like, this is life on this planet.  There’s so much I don’t know, don’t understand, and so much I want to know more of.  With a single flash, I am transformed into a feather that flits around the traffic, in and out of wheel wells, under the bus, down into the sewer, popping back out at another drainage grate… this is what it’s like to be alive. 

*flash* now I am the child, running ahead of her mother, whispering, “catch me, mommy,” and the mother isn’t looking, she’s watching the cars stream past her, honking, and I can’t seem to catch her attention, so I bolt into the street.

*flash* there is a man sitting behind me.  He is wearing a baggy, shiny, silver jacket over his massive body.  There are black skulls on his shirt, and he is listening to loud music, so loud we can all hear it.  The black girl sitting next to me cringes when the man starts rapping with the music, “White woman, sitting in the back of the bus, she won’t look at us, she ain’t one of us.”  I bite my lip.  It’s not that I’m uncomfortable with him, but everyone seems to be uncomfortable with me. 

A young mother with her three children stream onto the bus at the next stop.  She has to direct them to stand close to her, but they are curious.  Prejudice and ignorance are learned behaviors.  The youngest child, a boy no more than two years old, smiles at me.  “Hello little man,” I say.

*flash* “Next stop,” *garbled* No use in worrying where I’m at.  I’m disoriented, it doesn’t matter where I am. 

My mind wanders to a memory of my lover, lying in bed with just the cotton sheet wrapped around him.  His breathing moves the sheet.  Under the sheet, his hair wraps around his body, and I can see it rise and fall as he sleeps sweetly.  

I am not alone here.  I can feel their presence everywhere… the others like me.  I can see it in your eyes.  I can hear it in your words.  A man up the aisle latches onto my eyes, he’s been watching me watch another.  He doesn’t smile, just stares. 

Time is no longer waiting for me.  My days last for years.  My seconds click by disheartingly slowly.  I can see the pulse of a man sitting in front of me.  His jugular throbs a silent cry.  beatBeat, beatBeat, beatBeat. “White woman, her pants fit so nice, I want to slap her ass and show her who’s boss.”

Suddenly the bus is silent.   Everyone’s bustle falls into a deafening silence.  “Sharon, we need you to come to the front.”

I get up.  My name isn’t Sharon.  But I can’t stop myself.  I can’t make my legs sit me back down on my seat.  I am walking forward, pressing myself through the crowd of people standing in the walk way.  I hear whispers.  I hear gum snapping.  I hear the thumping of his headphones, sitting in his lap.  He’s taken them off of his head; he wants to see what happens.

“Next stop,”

I get off the bus.  I watch the bus drive away.  The streets are empty now.  I begin to walk.  I have no idea where I’m going.  I am not lost, though.  I keep walking.  For hours, I push myself forward, one step at a time.  I ignore the ache in my side, the blisters rubbing against my shoes.  I look down, and instead of seeing my adult body, I see a child’s.  I touch my hair, and it feels soft.  I keep walking. 

There is a man, now.  He is riding a bicycle, walking his dog.  He goes into a shop, and disappears.  The building is old, crumbling.  The pillars are painted purple.  I follow him.

My fingertips press the heavy door in front of me.  It creaks open.  I step inside, and it is dark again. So dark that I can see nothing.

I hear nothing.  There seems to be a vacuum of sound in this room, a vacuum so powerful that I cannot hear my own breath.  I try to speak, to hear something– anything.  I can’t even hear my footsteps.

I say my name, “Ash.”

I can’t hear it outside of my mind.

I awake to find myself on the bus.  It is crowded here.  People stare at me, the white woman, finding herself there, on the back of the bus, wondering how the hell I got there and where we are all going.