The Morning Bus Ride: A Reflective Piece
Walking from my home to the bus stop for the morning 480 bus takes about 10 minutes. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning I would walk along Francis Road towards No. 3 Road, and every morning I would encounter the same middle-age Caucasian lady and her dog. I must confess I can never quite understand why anyone would walk their dog in the freezing cold of a January morning; perhaps it is for the morning freshness of a dream or quiet solitude of a still half-slumbering city.
At the bus stop. The usual people standing at their usual waiting spots. There is a strangeness in this kind of regularity: everyone seems to know their spot, and everyone is unwilling to move away from their spot, not as if they each own a particular location, but as if they are afraid to break the inaudible purse of morning life. The regularity, I suppose, is almost ritual: we are all priests performing the same deed hoping for the same result – the punctual arrival of the bus. And as I stand facing the on coming traffic, I search for those dim lights that gradually shine though my cloud of breathe: 480 UBC. A 98 B-line passes by, carrying those who are off to work. I look at my watch and find that it is 7:31. The bus should be within sight in the next 30 seconds. Others begin to shuffle their feet, take out their U-passes, turn on their ipods.
The bus opens the door and reveals a tired bus driver. Mechanically he mutters “good morning”, which nobody hears anyway. I slip my U-pass into the machine, making that awful “dud” sound, and make my way to the back to the bus. Eyes scan around, hoping to find a familiar face, but also to find that familiar place: an empty space. By the time the bus gets to my stop, the bus usually is almost full. Often there is one odd seat beside two napping students, and I go and join the slumbering party, each with their own stream of broken thoughts and dreams. The bus echoes nothing but the sound of the engine: human chatter is minimal, although the occasional conversation does flourish in the midst of a general fatigue: for those who can only pretend to sleep, eavesdropping is the next best activity on the bus. In the morning, topics of conversations can vary: from the weather and the exam, to the gossip and the news. The most interesting conversation I’ve heard is about elephants and the zoo; the most profound, the nature of death in our post-modern world; the most stupid, my own internal dialogue about what makes stupidity stupid (thank goodness no one can eavesdrop into that).
I pass by the same faces and the same streets every morning, yet upon recollection I do not believe I can recall any one of them (obviously except those whom I have already met before and are my friends). Yet if I am a brave sort of person, I would like to meet every one of them and get to know who they are, not just their names, ages and majors, but also what is their kind of pies, what they think of yoga and yogurt, or what would they do if they found out that a spider is crawling down their pants. Or these places along the route, the Starbucks and Macdonald’s, as well as that market on 41st in Kerisdale, or the bookstore at Dunbar: who is in there when the bus passes by, and what are they doing (that is, if the store is even opened!)? Sometimes, when miraculously I feel awake, I look around and see the occasional keener reading his economics textbook or reviewing her biology notes. If they are beside me, I like turn and look at their notes, to see the different kinds of handwritings: chicken scratches, artistic (which, according to my friend, are really the same thing), Victorian, or (rather dully) typed. Yet I have to say, by the end of the ride, half of the bus is asleep; the other half, falling asleep, and these curiosities fly away like the fleeting dream.
I think I have ridden the bus for many times that with my eyes closed I can predict the exact location of the bus. With the 480, northbound, starting from where I usually get onto the bus, there are one full right turn, 2 half right turns, 2 circular right turns and 3 full left turns; the engine sounds different right when it reaches the junction of 41st and Marine Drive. When people begin to rub clear of the window of the dew, I know the bus has made its second last left turn (onto Westbrook Mall), and that it has arrived proper on UBC land. And of course, before the arrival at the final station, there is always one or two people who cannot get off the bus and yells “back-door please!”. Whether they get off or not, that depends on the mood of the bus driver.
Nearing the last stop. Everyone slowly wakes up, packs their bags and wrap up the cords for their ipods. There is generally nothing to look at, so one looks at the advertisements. Here’s one with a girl and her legs – shoes; there’s one with a tree – colleges. Often times I see the fill in the blanks one for safe sex; and more touching is the one with the ragged doll – awareness of street-workers. Remember that one where a cell-phone shape is cut out of a girl’s chest, and you can see her cleavage? That one is no longer there, near the emergency exit on the roof at the back of the bus. I miss that ad: I wonder if her boobs are real.
But everyone else who is left will get out at the last stop. We have come together for a brief hour, and then we are each off doing our own things. Though we never speak to each other, or even dared to meet each other eye-to-eye, I must say, we are, however odd this seems, a kind of and a kind community.
At the bus stop. The usual people standing at their usual waiting spots. There is a strangeness in this kind of regularity: everyone seems to know their spot, and everyone is unwilling to move away from their spot, not as if they each own a particular location, but as if they are afraid to break the inaudible purse of morning life. The regularity, I suppose, is almost ritual: we are all priests performing the same deed hoping for the same result – the punctual arrival of the bus. And as I stand facing the on coming traffic, I search for those dim lights that gradually shine though my cloud of breathe: 480 UBC. A 98 B-line passes by, carrying those who are off to work. I look at my watch and find that it is 7:31. The bus should be within sight in the next 30 seconds. Others begin to shuffle their feet, take out their U-passes, turn on their ipods.
The bus opens the door and reveals a tired bus driver. Mechanically he mutters “good morning”, which nobody hears anyway. I slip my U-pass into the machine, making that awful “dud” sound, and make my way to the back to the bus. Eyes scan around, hoping to find a familiar face, but also to find that familiar place: an empty space. By the time the bus gets to my stop, the bus usually is almost full. Often there is one odd seat beside two napping students, and I go and join the slumbering party, each with their own stream of broken thoughts and dreams. The bus echoes nothing but the sound of the engine: human chatter is minimal, although the occasional conversation does flourish in the midst of a general fatigue: for those who can only pretend to sleep, eavesdropping is the next best activity on the bus. In the morning, topics of conversations can vary: from the weather and the exam, to the gossip and the news. The most interesting conversation I’ve heard is about elephants and the zoo; the most profound, the nature of death in our post-modern world; the most stupid, my own internal dialogue about what makes stupidity stupid (thank goodness no one can eavesdrop into that).
I pass by the same faces and the same streets every morning, yet upon recollection I do not believe I can recall any one of them (obviously except those whom I have already met before and are my friends). Yet if I am a brave sort of person, I would like to meet every one of them and get to know who they are, not just their names, ages and majors, but also what is their kind of pies, what they think of yoga and yogurt, or what would they do if they found out that a spider is crawling down their pants. Or these places along the route, the Starbucks and Macdonald’s, as well as that market on 41st in Kerisdale, or the bookstore at Dunbar: who is in there when the bus passes by, and what are they doing (that is, if the store is even opened!)? Sometimes, when miraculously I feel awake, I look around and see the occasional keener reading his economics textbook or reviewing her biology notes. If they are beside me, I like turn and look at their notes, to see the different kinds of handwritings: chicken scratches, artistic (which, according to my friend, are really the same thing), Victorian, or (rather dully) typed. Yet I have to say, by the end of the ride, half of the bus is asleep; the other half, falling asleep, and these curiosities fly away like the fleeting dream.
I think I have ridden the bus for many times that with my eyes closed I can predict the exact location of the bus. With the 480, northbound, starting from where I usually get onto the bus, there are one full right turn, 2 half right turns, 2 circular right turns and 3 full left turns; the engine sounds different right when it reaches the junction of 41st and Marine Drive. When people begin to rub clear of the window of the dew, I know the bus has made its second last left turn (onto Westbrook Mall), and that it has arrived proper on UBC land. And of course, before the arrival at the final station, there is always one or two people who cannot get off the bus and yells “back-door please!”. Whether they get off or not, that depends on the mood of the bus driver.
Nearing the last stop. Everyone slowly wakes up, packs their bags and wrap up the cords for their ipods. There is generally nothing to look at, so one looks at the advertisements. Here’s one with a girl and her legs – shoes; there’s one with a tree – colleges. Often times I see the fill in the blanks one for safe sex; and more touching is the one with the ragged doll – awareness of street-workers. Remember that one where a cell-phone shape is cut out of a girl’s chest, and you can see her cleavage? That one is no longer there, near the emergency exit on the roof at the back of the bus. I miss that ad: I wonder if her boobs are real.
But everyone else who is left will get out at the last stop. We have come together for a brief hour, and then we are each off doing our own things. Though we never speak to each other, or even dared to meet each other eye-to-eye, I must say, we are, however odd this seems, a kind of and a kind community.
posted by Tristan at 9:52 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home