work chronicles

I was going to document this as “life without a car,” but then I remembered that even when I had a car, I took the bus to work.

I’ve learned that relying on busses means a lot of running, which I guess is fine because, other than walking Pickle, it’s pretty much my only source of exercise.

Yesterday morning, I ran to catch the bus. Our first bus ran off the track, but when the driver when to fix it, he smashed the line into the truck behind us, meaning he then had to file an accident report. Only about five blocks from my stop, I got out. Then I looked at the time. Three minutes until my bus was due to arrive in the tunnel.

I started the run. Around the bend, my ankle turned, but I had to keep going. I arrived in the tunnel just as my bus was pulling up to the stop. Panting, I got on and made it to work on time.

When I get off the bus, I always make a quick stop at Blazing Bagels. They sell day-old muffins for $0.50, which I find quite a deal, even if they aren’t vegan (one of those exception instances where my wallet rules my diet).

The muffin man knows me. We’re on a first-name basis, even if most of the time, he calls me ‘love’. When I walked in the door this morning, there were three people in front of me. I stretched to look over their heads for the basket of day-olds: one left. Don’t take that muffin, I thought on repeat in my head. When the muffin man saw me, he quickly swooped up the muffin and walked up to register. I walked around the folks in front of me and dropped my two quarters into his hand.

“One left, love!” He knows that I get disappointed when they run out of day-olds before I get there; when they don’t have any, I dish out $1.79 for a bagel to be polite.

I smiled, took the muffin and wished him a happy Friday. The whole exchange took about 47 seconds, and I walked out of the door with a lovely chocolate muffin.

There are a lot of little shops like that near the transit center. A few blocks away, there’s Café Habits, which I’ve never been to, but yesterday as I walked to catch the bus home (an early evening at just 4:10!), I heard someone call my name from the café door. One of my co-workers was waiting for his coffee order. We stood and chatted until his coffee was ready. I then continued my trek to the bus, praying I wouldn’t miss it.

There’s a big intersection before the transit center. After the two traffic lights, a pedestrian light comes on; there’s no crosswalk, but the light say, “Crosswalk is on for all crossings,” and all of us walkers scramble in zig-zags to get to our appropriate corners of the center.

I was waiting for that light. I saw my bus sitting at the curb, so I prepped for the dash, getting into a runner’s stance, knees slightly bent, one leg in front of the other. When the light turned, I bolted. Unfortunately, dress shoes don’t fare well for running. Halfway across the street, my shoe fell off. Arms flailing, I scattered back for it. My one sock cold against the brick road. Slipping it back on and stepping on the heel, I scrambled on. The folks waiting for another bus made obvious comments like, “You almost lost a shoe!”

“Gotta catch my bus!” I huffed and kept scrambling, arms still swinging at my sides like a ‘20s dancer only much less elegant. Twenty feet from the bus, it pulled away from the curb. I slowed my pace in a disappointed puff of a sigh. Those ten minutes until the next bus really make a difference when it’s the first night you’ve left the office before six all week, and you’ve got over an hour’s commute ahead of you.

Magically, as I pivoted to stand next to the bus stop, another one pulled up. I got on, and it departed. No harm, no foul. Glad to be seated, out of the cold, and on my way home, a happy sigh left me to my commute novel.

By the time I get downtown, I never feel like catching another bus. Of course I have no choice if I want to get home. Sometimes it feels like the rush of catching a bus is the most excitement the day will bring. Sometimes I miss it, and that’s okay. It’s a lesson in patience for sure, but in Paulo Coelho’s Valkyrie, he writes about how we all have an angel. When things happen, like we forget where we put our keys (or we miss the bus), it’s because our angel is looking out for us: there’s a reason we were meant to be delayed against our plans.

Coelho’s guide in the desert says that when those pauses happen, he likes to take an extra second to try to figure out what it is his angel is trying to tell him.

I think of this during all of the rush and rest of commuting. Somehow my angel always gets me where I need to be. Sometimes, it’s just to grab the last muffin in the morning.