Cold Reality

Everyone should take public transportation every now and then if for no other reason than to just be out amongst people. Oh sure, anybody that has to go to leave their house to go anywhere can make a claim that they are getting out and about, but it’s never quite as intimate an exposure as , say, riding a crowded bus. All of us in our own private pollution machines (even the hybrids will pollute eventually, when they finally hit the scrap yard) ride around in a sterile environment, traveling in the quarantined bubble of our vehicles. We drive around listening to music our talk radio, totally self absorbed; not even corresponding with a passenger if one is sitting with us. The windshield, the dotted lines on the road, and the brake lights in front of us are all that we see. We don’t really even see those. We’re on auto-pilot thinking about what our day has in store, what a waste our day might have been or anywhere in between.

Riding the bus is great because all at once the seats are grand equalizers. Unlike air travel, there is no first class. The bus doesn’t wait for anybody. If you’re not there, it takes off and you have to wait for the next one. There is no preferential seating. If the guy in front of you wants the window open, you better hope you brought your jacket. There are no SUV superiority complexes, enforcing their will on you as they switch lanes. There are no convertible sports car drivers smugly grinning at you through their rose colored glasses, begging for you to notice them. There’s just the bus. Pay your fare and move down the aisle to a seat. Any seat. Anyone and everyone could be on your bus. From the rich guy that enjoys the convenience and low stress that the bus ride offers as an alternative to driving, to the minimum wage worker with no other means of transportation. Everyone is equal on this coach.

I’ve taken the bus for years and, being the keen observer that I am have always wondered what each individual’s story was as I rode. Is the guy up there in the first seat holding a conversation with the driver just an all around friendly guy or is this the only human contact he gets all day? Is the kid sleeping in the back seat, with the beanie and the big coat cutting school or on his way home from his graveyard shift that helps him to help his grandmother to pay her bills. I wonder if they’re looking at me? What do other people think about me as I stare blankly at an odd piece of architecture as if trying to see through its stucco walls with my x-ray vision. Do they think I look sad or lonely? Do they notice me at all?

This morning I was drifting in and out of observation mode and partially into my own thoughts when I was struck by a thunderbolt that put things back into perspective for me. It was a cold morning by San Fransisco Bay Area standards, and I had plenty of layers on to combat the cold. The very moist morning air made the cool weather seep deep into my bones. At this point, I was cursing myself for deciding against bringing a hat today. I kept telling myself that 52 degrees is no big deal. A month ago I was in the snow in Ohio so I should be able to handle this. Maybe that week in the Caribbean erased all of my “cold-weather-cred”. Yeah, that must be it. No, that’s definitely it.

My hands hurt. I had gloves with me, but it was 52 degrees and the sun was out. Sometimes I act as though somebody watching me and I’ll be criticized for moves that I make. I’m no weekly television series. People aren’t tuning in to see what I’m going to do. No one is going to be sitting around the water cooler tomorrow saying, “Did you see that fool last night? Puttin’ gloves on in 52 degree weather....Wimp!” Nonetheless, I was refusing to put the gloves on. I rationalized that I would put them on for the evening ride home when it would probably be cooler. But my hands were really cold, and growing steadily uncomfortable.

Then the aforementioned thunderbolt hit me. When I was walking to the bus I saw a man that had no hands. He was sitting on a curb, also waiting for the bus and trying to smoke a cigarette. He held the cigarette between his two wrists and took a drag. I hadn’t seen how he had managed to light it, but he was smoking a cigarette, with all of the dignity and grace of a tribal leader hoisting a smoldering pipe toward his face. I thought about Rwanda and machetes and ruthless warlords trying to break the spirit of a people. I can’t even fathom the atrocities that this guy must’ve seen and experienced. Here I was complaining about my hands being cold. I have hands. I could put them in my pockets. It was inspiring to watch this guy methodically retrieve the bus pass from his jacket and subsequently hand it to the driver. I take for granted the use of my hands each day. This man had none. He wasn’t at home crying about it. He was out taking the bus somewhere. He was living.

I left the gloves in my bag. It wasn’t that cold.