The Bus Stop

Note: I wrote this last night (Thursday 9/24/09 for the record) and I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet. It feels like poetry, even though it is in prose form. That ambiguity intrigues me.

As I stand at the bus stop, waiting to complete my journey home from work, having already walked nearly a mile, I can’t help but become acutely and intensely aware of the bustle that swirls around me. Night after night, I see the people swish past, some arm-in-arm and some alone, the latter often with headphones stuck in their ears. Some of them even have hands dedicated to texting, between skipping songs they’re not in the mood for and other ones they’re not even sure why they ever downloaded, while they walk and try to keep half an eye on the way forward. I hear snippets of their conversations with each other or to people on the other ends of phones. The ones speaking on headsets appear to be insane at first, of course. Cars trundle past on their way to everywhere, weaving around the buses that loudly proclaim their adherence to their set route and schedule. Bicyclists dart here and there, their flashing red lights blinking away under the constant gaze of street lamps and headlights.

And I am there standing still. An observer of so much, I can forget that; that I am really there, inhabiting a body that can interact with what is before me. It reminds me how disconnected I am, how apart from so much of this society I stand. It is almost as if a metaphor I once imagined was brought to life. There is a bittersweet sadness; a primal longing to belong that inevitably rises up in these moments. But there is also a peace; a kind of warmth that settles over everything inside me. It is not truly loneliness that animates me at the bus stop, though the feeling is similar, but a sort of sadness that the world has placed us all where we are and that we all stand apart, even the ones who are walking together, so close they can whisper and hear without being overheard. At those moments I feel that I could be standing with someone who has known me all my life and still be alone.

But there is so much beauty there, too. The way the thin branches of a dead tree encircle the stars when I look up; the rotting boughs still stretch forth with elegant determination, powerful even in death. The dissonant strains of music from car stereos mix with the cacophony of rumbling engines, the occasional horns and myriad human conversation to form a song of pulsing life that would make John Cage smile and tap his foot to the nonexistent beat. And, on second thought, maybe that couple is sharing a true moment of love as they move on out of sight. Maybe they are not so far apart as they first appeared. Maybe it is possible to experience true moments these days; maybe this is one. And the inner warmth grows. And sometimes it makes me smile. Does any passerby, reflecting my position and observing me, have an inkling of why? Do they feel it, too?