Into The Rabbit Hole

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.

Emotions are amazing.  I love being in love.  I love being filled with love.  I love happiness and joy, and in the right time, sadness.  It’s all part of the human experience. However, emotions will absolutely serve as a lens for any situation you experience.  When you feel tension, if you can set yourself away from the emotional part of the experience, I can assure you that this tension is a direct result from the emotions you feel about the situation.

One must consider when dealing with humans, particularly, that we are all emotional creatures.  Whether we admit it or not, we all want to have our emotions validated and reciprocated.  When we’re in love, we want love returned.  When we’re miserable, we want to be with people who share our misery.  When we’re happy, we seek out companionship that feeds our happiness.  Read the rest of this entry »

I like watching people just be people. It’s so sad.  In our culture, we are taught to abide by the norms that our society has placed upon us.  We are supposed to look a certain way, behave a certain way, think a certain way… all that we do is supposed to fit precisely “just so” in order for our cultural beliefs to propagate… just as they have done for however many years our western civilization has been this way.

We’re spoon fed the ideas of our teachers: our parents, their parents, and the generation prior.  We’re told that in order to be any one, we must be aesthetically pleasing (and the definition changes as our bodies evolve); we’re told we must act a certain way, and ultimately that we must think a certain way in order to get ahead.

I’m not saying it’s not true, either!  Our system is set up so that we DO get ahead when we play the game right.  And playing the game really isn’t so bad… but it sure does inhibit people from just… BEing.

I like to watch a woman, standing at a crosswalk, absorbed by the busy-ness of the hundreds of people surrounding her, anonymous because even the glances those driving by will soon be lost to the next stimulus, straightening her pantyhose or scratching her ear.  She is no longer the focal point of the eyes of god and all those watching her, she is just BEing, as she is, and she is beautiful.

I like to watch a man, tired from a day’s work, talking on his cell phone, exaggerating his arm movements.  I know the story he is trying to tell, and I’m certain that the person on the other end of the phone, could they see him, would understand as well. 

I like to watch two teenage boys scream along with Neil Diamond–not making fun of the song, but laughing because they know the words.

I like to watch the joggers, the coffee drinkers, the worry-worts, the suits, the ties, the homeless cart-pushing men, and the children.  I like to see people just doing what they do best…

You can tell when they’re doing something different from this.  You can see it in how they hold themselves.

I like it when they let go.

At twenty-eight weeks, she fell.  She hit the baby.  Intraventricular hemorrhage.  Whatever that meant, it couldn’t be good. …might lose the baby.…she could be born brain dead.

She was born.  She was a living, breathing beauty. 

Hydrocephalus… the blood prevented the cerebrospinal fluid from exiting the ventricles as it’s supposed to.  Brain surgery… a shunt.  It’s not that dramatic of an ordeal.  A shunt, to drain the fluid from her brain.  She’ll be okay.  Only a few weeks given to live.  Better make it a good two weeks. 

After the shunt was placed, her parents loved her SO much. Two weeks isn’t long enough.  Couldn’t we please just make it two months?  Please, god, two months. Two months.  She’s not a normal baby.  There are delays.  Her shunt’s not working properly.  Could be a shunt malfunction. Is she brain damaged?  A little.  Not much longer to live, though.  Just love her.  Love her and hold her.

Four months old now.  She’s so beautiful.  She may not be progressing like a normal four month old, but she’s so pretty.  She’s responsive.  She’s not a vegetable.  She can move.  She can smile.  She knows mommy’s voice.  She looks in daddy’s direction when he comes home.  Just a little longer… please, just a few more weeks.

Today I spoke with the family. Surgery?  Or Hospice care? What do YOU decide?Before you answer, I need you to remember something… If we save her… if we prolong the inevitable… what happens if she dies at five months old?  What about ten months old?  What if she beats all odds and lives– but is only ever a vegetable?  She might never be potty trained.  Her body can grow and her brain continues to deteriorate.  She’s not even baseline.  In fact, her white matter keeps growing smaller and smaller. Now what do we decide?

Don’t be too quick to make a judgment.   

I held a baby chick in my hands.
Her down was softer than anything I had ever touched before, she was beautiful. She trembled with fear. I know that feeling.
I know how you feel.
Fear can be inescapable, ineluctable.
It can stop you in your tracks.

This fear. I know how it is to tremble, to not know from whence the next blow will come. I know you are afraid, and I can see you trembling inside, even when you’ve put on your big boy face.   I can see you are curious, but something is holding you back– something is preventing you from stepping forward into the light.

The shadows hide your face so cleverly.  I can see you, though.  Waiting, watching, praying for the sign that will allow you to move forward, to not be afraid. The difference is that I see from outside in.  I can see the big picture, the whole picture, and I realize there is really nothing to fear at all.  You cannot see it, and the risk of not knowing is enough to keep you cowering in fear until the next great moment comes along. Sadly, you do not hear me calling to you.  You are too consumed by it, in too deep to hear me say your name. I call to you.  I motion for you to follow me. I cannot stand here forever, though, my friend.  I cannot wait, I am in motion, I am not afraid.  Movement, change… they prevent stagnation.  Perhaps that is MY fear.  But it is not terror.  Rather, it motivates me, it moves me.  Remove your concrete shoes, take the first step. You can do this.  I’m right beside you.

This is going to sound a little strange to you.  Maybe.

 I feel a little detached from humans sometimes. I see humankind as almost a different creature from me– or I a different creature from them.  Perhaps this is my egocentric character shining through.  Perhaps it is the emotion one has as a person watcher.  I watch people.  I can sit and watch human behaviors for hours.  Not on television, but in public.  I am fascinated by behaviors– by how people interact with each other based on their mood, their company, their circumstances, and their levels of inhibition.   I have been known to watch for hours and hours, and if I cannot figure out a person’s story by observing them, I will create a story that seems to fit what I’ve watched about them.  This adds a certain twist– maybe even a tad bit of drama so to speak, because it’s interesting to watch the story unfold… are these strange humans going to follow their own story line?  How accurate is my assessment?  What more will they do to add to the plot?  

People fascinate me.  I want to go into psychiatry.  I want to understand behavior, and I want to know how to predict it. Here’s the kicker:  I’m human. Honestly, I don’t always know what I’m going to do in all situations, and really, I feel like I’m dreaming a lot.  I think that a lack of sleep and an innate ability to deal with dramatic change has allowed me to shift my perspective into the people watch of myself.    I am curious about the wide variety of possible interactive behaviors I could exhibit, and I’m often amazed by whatever avenue I pick.   It’s not that I don’t have a perspective of why it is that I make the decisions I make– hell, I have front row tickets to the inner workings of my own brilliant mind; it’s honestly not all that different from watching other people– as I have created in my head a solid understanding of why people do the things they do.  So I know why I do the things I do, and I understand them, but I still find it amusing to watch myself.  I even have a somewhat strange propensity for putting myself into unusual situations just to see how I deal with them.  These are fascinating experiences.  Sometimes I wonder if maybe I have a higher threshold for stimulation– but then I’m reminded of the little things that I love and appreciate in my sensory experience.  I am not exempt from human behaviors. I fascinate myself.  I like watching myself interact with people. 

I fell in love today.    
In the same moment, my heart was broken.   
I want to tell you about J.  He’s got sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and a smile that will knock your socks off.   He’s ten months old and has spinal muscular atrophy, which means that he’s paralyzed from the neck down.  He isn’t expected to live much longer than a year old; he’s on a ventilator to breathe, has a tracheal tube, and a GI tube to feed.    One of my nurses called me today and asked me to talk on the phone with him.  He can’t move, but he loves sensory stimuli, much like I do.   So I cooed in his ear, telling him what a handsome, beautiful baby he was.  Jane put the phone back to her own ear and said, “Ash, you should have seen how his eyes lit up when he heard your voice.  You’ve got to come meet him.”  So I did.  I went on a trek across the hospital to find a stuffed animal, first.  I found him a green fuzzy wiener dog, and I took the steps two at a time to get to the fifth floor, where his room is.   When I sat down next to him, his eyes found my face, to connect with the voice he had just smiled at over the phone.   He may not be able to move the rest of his body, but his smile is beautiful.   I played with his hair, helped him run his fingers through mine, and helped him play peek-a-boo.  He can’t laugh… he can’t coo back… he will never be able to say my name or anyone’s for that matter… but his smile and his eyes said a million words in the short time of the hour that I was there next to him.  For a few minutes, the world around me completely disappeared.   I wondered what his family would think of me playing with him like he was my own.   I continued to talk with the nurse, asking about how his body works, how she plays with them… and then came upon the topic of his parents.  My heart was broken when I learned they had abandoned him, unable to care for a poor paralyzed baby who would never crawl, say “momma” or potty train.  Hell, he probably won’t even make it to his second birthday.    I can’t remember the last time I felt so sad for another human being.  This child was given a set of recessive genes that allowed him a normal first two months of his life but quickly progressed into complete paralysis within eight months… and this child has no one to call mommy, even if he could say it.    Fortunately, the nurses have essentially adopted him.  I am allowed to come visit him whenever I want to.  I can’t wait to hold him… to show him the beautiful things around him that his parents will never do for him.  I’m not his mother, nor are any of us who love this child; I am, however, someone who can help make sure that his last year here in this world is something worth while.   It was then that I knew that where I am, right this minute, is exactly where I need to be.