A Series of Encounters on the Bus

A man sat next to me on the bus. It was evening, and I was reading The French Lieutenant’s Woman on the way home from work. The man’s large stature filled his seat, nudging against my side. I was at the window; he was at the aisle.

“That’s a fantastic book.” He pointed at The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

“It’s pretty good so far.”

“I read once that men cramp and crowd women on the bus. Ever since, I’ve tried to be more conscious of it. Are you okay? Do you have enough space?” I was a bit cramped but wanted to be polite, so I just said ‘you’re fine’ and kept reading. He continued to bring it up as we rode along, “Still doing ok?” Neither of us had moved a bit.

He asked so much that for a brief moment, I thought he might be coming on to me, but I think he was just being nice, and I appreciate that.

This morning, I got on the bus and sat next to a man. In Pennsylvania, I would have said this man was in his 60s, but somehow, everyone looks younger out here, so he was probably in his 70s. He was sitting at the window reading the newspaper. When I sat down next to him, he didn’t move or even look up. I peered over his shoulder at the paper—an image of a squatting drag queen showed under “theatre”. The man had both pages of the newspaper open and splayed before him; his legs were spread with his bag on the floor between them. I awkwardly leaned into the seat to stay sitting on it. He got off three stops later, beckoning me to stand so that he could leave.

On the way home, I was rushing. I don’t know why I’m always rushing, but as I neared the bottom of the escalator, I noticed that the man in front of me was blind, using a cane to feel for the step. I didn’t know what to do; what is the appropriate interaction?

As I stepped onto the escalator, we were nearly next to each other. He stepped to the right, and I began to walk up the escalator, as I usually do.

“Hello!” he said as I stood with my foot on the next step. I felt like I had been busted.

“Hi.” I replied.

“I am looking for the D bus line? At Pike.”

 “Of course, just come with me; I’m going exactly there!” We conversed for the entire 45 seconds escalator ride, though I mostly just said mmhmm because his thick accent was difficult to understand. We were going to the same place, and that was all that mattered.

At the top of the escalator, I walked a step ahead of him. He apologized every time he tapped my heel with his cane, but I just assured him, “That’s what I’m here for.” I was trying to clear the way, but he kept veering to the left or right. I thought it might be weird to guide him by his arm, but by the time we reached the corner, I did. We arrived just in time for the bus. As we stood in line, a polite young man grabbed the blind man by the arm and said, “You go ahead, sir,” and guided him up the step to the bus.

My pass wouldn’t work; as I tapped the box, it read “Error, try again” but three times it declined.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” said the bus driver, “Go ahead.” He was awfully chipper for 7am on a Tuesday.

At 2^nd and Broad, an older lady slowly made her way down the steps with her walker.

“Don’t miss me too much next week,” the bus driver said to her.
“Ok.”

“I’ll be in Barcelona on Friday.”

“Ok.”

As the next person got on the bus, he revealed their friendship: “She prays for me every day, so I like to treat her special.”

A few stops later, a man got on the bus and asked, “Are you on the regular schedule?”

“Sure; I don’t know what that means.”

“Heh, me either.”

home&hope

I’ve lost all sense of home. I’ve come to the realization that I find “home” in being able to control my life.

My family in Pennsylvania is entirely well and unwell at the same time, and there’s not a thing I can do from 3,000 miles away.

Not only can I not afford a plane ticket, but I apparently can’t afford to move to a new apartment. But I also cannot afford not to move, as our rent is about to skyrocket.

I’ve been diving through possibilities, and my hope has skyrocketed and plummeted about fifteen times just this week. Endless craigslist searching, phone calls, apartment visits. I cannot bring myself to pinch pennies for a 400 sq. ft. apartment. It’s just not worth it. Maybe I won’t be okay living alone, but I like to think that I would if I had just a little bit of space. I thought space was something people needed from each other—really, space is just something we need to feel comfort.

Growing up, Derek, Katlin, and I were obsessed with a computer game called the SIMS—a simulated life. We would build houses for these charaters that we created. We’d decorate with wallpaper and furniture, and then let them live out their lives in record time. They’d get jobs and sleep and talk in jibber-jabber. Building their homes was always my favorite part, but we could never make a complete home with the allotted beginning budget. We had to use a cheat to get more money to build what they needed (and then some). And when their houses were too small, they’d stand in the room with thought bubbles over their heads exclaiming “X#?!Y*%^” as they pulled at their heads and shook their fists in the air. A caption would appear saying “Your Sim is feeling cramped. She is unhappy because she doesn’t have enough space.”

I need space. I currently have to navigate around our couch to enter my matress on the floor from the top or bottom. There is no space. I sleep on a mattress on the floor. Our walls are coated with books—my nearest solace, yet my enemy because they take up even the illusion of space. And yet, I can’t bring myself to pick up a single one lately.

Sure, I shouldn’t complain. I’m twenty-two and have a load of opportunity unfolding. I have a mattress at least, even if it is on the floor. This is how twenty-two-year-olds are supposed to live. But I’ve never lived up to my age. I don’t know. I still make friends with thirty-somethings yet am continually the youngest—at work, at church, in my family.

I like to see it as progress—I’m doing something. I’m out here testing the waters. If life would have happened like it was supposed to, I’d really be in my last semester of college. Instead, I’m just a confused person searching for years that I cannot have.

I don’t want to be older. I don’t want to wish my life away. I just want to not have to hide my age. I want to not have to live like how people expect twenty-two-year-olds to live. I want a bed. I want space.

I think it’s the country coming out of me. I dream of water views just to feel like I’m not surrounded by steel. I dream of open lofts with natural light (a rarity here anyways, especially this time of year). When Pickle & I go for walks, we pass people in groves, always paired off. We watch groups party in their apartments or stumble across sidewalks with bottles in their hands and cigarettes between their fingers, laughing and talking about the next football game.

I don’t want to be them. I just don’t want to be this. I wantwantwant. Gross.

No one ever said anything would be easy. Ever. That’s so vague & cliché, but I’m learning it’s more true than I thought. Can I really be a city girl? I think I’m only pretending. I miss my car. I miss the road. I miss not caring if I had a bed or a couch. I’ve taken it all for granted.

I want to be grateful, but it’s hard when I realize that at 567 words (and counting) this blog post already has more words than I’ll ever see in square footage for the next few years.

I don’t want to settle, but I want to settle in. I don’t want to move every year, but the housing market here can’t keep up with itself, causing costs to rise and space to decrease, and there are so many people living on the streets, yet I can’t bring myself to settle for less. This is what I was afraid of when I moved to this city—I am becoming one of them, but something within me is fighting it. I’m glad for the fight, even though it hurts—I don’t want to be disappointed in my good fortune.

So how do I trust that this will all work out? That I won’t be one of those homeless street-sleepers in 30 days time? How do I care for a dog and myself and offer more than prayers for my blood back East? How do I care for the street-sleepers and do something more than just whine about my fortunate yet unsatisfying life?

I think about that a lot with Christianity. We are called to so much: to let go of things of this world and care for people. To love our brothers and give to them. But we are selfish; I am selfish. I want a nice home, a place to feel at home. I want to take care of myself first. Christianity just seems so extreme, and I think we are all failing because if we did it right, the way Jesus says to, we’d all be living on the street helping others along instead of freaking out about square footage and being simultaneaously in and out of the city.

So there is an internal battle going on. I’m not sure who’s winning. Frankly, I can’t bring myself to route for either side.

Tomorrow begins yet another day of endless searching. The apartment of my dreams, which I was set to view at 1:00 was rented out tonight at 8. I’m running out of options. I’m running out of steam, but I’ve never been one to settle. If I were, I wouldn’t be in Seattle; I wouldn’t be a college graduate; I wouldn’t be a seeking Christian; I wouldn’t be twenty-two, living on my own, and praying for the next road to be “right”.

I can’t decide if this experience is humbling, frustrating, or simply revealing my true selfishness. Probably the latter two. The thought of packing up my worldly possessoins again for my third move across town in a year and a half makes my stomach churn. The thought of home creates an unsettling tension between tall trees and tall buildings.

I need people. I’m a people-person, I admit. Yet I cannot bring myself to do this roommate thing again. I’ve been spoiled my whole life by fields, my own room, and a spacious home that my father built. People don’t live like that here—things are provided, not worked for. People seem entitled, not earning to deserve. Finding the old ways feels impossible, but it’s all I long for. Don’t give me your fancy brand-new buildings with a high price tag. Accept me as a transplant who knows what it’s like to hammer a nail into wood and feel accomplished, who is willing to put in the hours to gain the reward of creation, not a paycheck, who cares to the point of insanity, even if there is no resolve, who will not choose to become the typical Seattlelite. I’m a Seattlelite now for sure—I’ve got all the signs of it: a dog, urban life, working for a Redmond-born company—but I’m still a small “town” girl with a heart longing to earn what I get and aspiring to deserve it before I expect it. I realize that at twenty-two, with little life accomplishment, I currently deserve very little.

Maybe this all sounds pretentious. I’m not sure. All I know is that I believe in hard work, manual labor, and the fruits of living off the land, even if those aren’t entirely my way of life at present. Isn’t that how the American Dream got started to begin with? Freedom, independence, hope.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. –Hebrews 11:1

Don’t squash my hope again, Seattle. Hope is strong and keeps coming back. I’ve got a lot of hope—in God, for my family, for the future, for happiness.

fifty/fifty

50/50 was the first movie I saw after Derek died. We went to the theatre. It had been about two weeks since the day. We had a great evening; the kind where, two weeks after your best friend died, you feel guilty that you’re out of the house having fun with friends.

In Aesthetics class my sophomore year of college, we watched Iphigenia. We were studying catharsis and art, and we talked about how film is often one such expression where you can experience a range of renewing emotions. What it really boils down to is bawling until your eyes are empty and holding onto that feeling of wholeness that lingers until your face is dry & feels tight when you try to make a face.

Last night was our company Christmas party. I wore the dress that I bought and wore for Derek’s funeral. It was the first time I’d worn it since. I told myself that it was just a dress. Just material. What does it matter? Then I added the final touch of the dark shell necklace he got me in high school. A just because gift.

Please excuse my tenses. I cannot write about Derek permanently in either present or past.

So I’ve been thinking about Derek. Not that I don’t think about him anymore; just that some days it’s more than others. And some less. I think that’s a good thing.

My roommate is out of town for the next two weeks. It feels surreal—I have the place to myself for two weeks. Just me and the dogs…and the turtle…and the fish. I’ve been sort of counting down for weeks, just looking forward to having my own space. I’ve still got two months to go, but these weeks are a taste. I can do anything. I can lie on the couch for hours if I can’t muster up the motivation to be productive. I can listen to the radio whenever. I can walk around in my pajamas at any hour without fear of someone’s boyfriend coming in.

And all of this is how I found myself sitting on the couch with Pickle licking the saltiness off my cheeks.

“I just want it to be over. I’m so fucking tired of being sick,” the main character, Adam, cries. I wonder if Derek felt that. I felt that. I wasn’t even sick. I felt it when Derek was in the hospital—I wanted it to be there months from then where we would be home and happy again, like it used to be. When that didn’t happen, and Derek died, I wanted the grief to be over. I wanted to be past missing him and feeling empty. And now I’m here. And I think this is that “over”, but it still doesn’t feel over, and I’m just fucking tired.

The movie is set in Seattle. The filmmakers do a terrible job making it look like the city, offering scenes of the Space Needle that couldn’t possibly exist with the corresponding streets in the film. When I first saw the movie, I knew so little of Seattle: rain, grey, Grey’s Anatomy. That’s it. I didn’t even think Frasier (hadn’t seen it yet) or hadn’t thought of it as a place to visit (until a few months later), and I certainly never imagined that one year later, I’d be living there. Here.

The winter has been mild so far, but the looming grey weights heavy & worries within me that I won’t keep happy through the rain. Mostly I wonder how to keep moving forward knowing the life that was while not understanding how it fits into the life that is while upholding my usual anxiety around the life that will be.

Typical Seattle December. Chance of rain: 50/50.

for good.

As I walked to the bus coming home from work, six o’clock chimed from some distant building. I imagined that it would transport me to another time, like they do in the movies. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened them, there I was, standing on the sidewalk on the way to the bus.

For one of the first time, I am openly saying it: I am sad. I am stuck. There is no reason for this sadness, but here it is. I am pushing through, forcing myself to do things like eat and work and write. I’m trying not to be rude or closed off. I’m not sure how I’m doing.

Everyone tells me to trust Jesus. Rest in Jesus. I’m certainly trying, but it’s hard to see the big picture when there is a tightness in my chest that makes breathing and moving feel like great efforts.

Clear your mind then. But meditation, I find, is particularly difficult for a writer. I am constantly writing in my head, even when a lot of it never sees paper.

I recently watched an episode of Boy Meets World where Cory and Eric are arguing and questioning their relationship as brothers. Their mother tells them that everything works out for good. “Do you really believe that?” Cory asks. “Yes, I do.”

I don’t want to be a statistic, but statistics say that the holidays are when people can be the most depressed. Honestly, I haven’t even thought about the holidays because they seem a bit unreal this year. The past two years, I’ve spent the holidays mourning—wondering why they didn’t look the same as they had the rest of my life, wondering why Derek wasn’t there. This year, I look back to last, my first in Washington, my first away from family, yet spent with really good friends. The forecast this year calls for the same. Only I feel like I should grieve less being another year removed form Derek.

I’ve been looking at pictures of him. It just doesn’t seem real. I am questioning everything I ever knew. Or though I knew. How does my life keep going yet his does not?

I’m not sure yet if my personality is a blessing or a curse. It sure seems to be a bit of both because I don’t think I could ever truly be depressed like the people on the Zoloft commercials. I have that type-A personality that says you must get shit done no matter how shitty you feel. So I do. (Hence the eating and working and writing.) So my personality is a blessing because I still have my job and my health, but it is a curse because maintaining those things feels like I am Atlas only without about as much muscle strength as a praying mantis. I don’t know if you know this, but bugs squash pretty easily.

Right after Derek died, I didn’t quit all of the things I wanted to. Of course, I can’t credit any of that semester to myself—a select few really strong people carried me along. Looking back now, I can hardly remember a lot of the details; all I know is that I somehow made it through, as if there was a wall of Saran Wrap somewhere between then and now, and I’ve broken that barrier. I think sometimes, the pieces still stick to my skin and my face and try to suffocate me, but I know I can break them again. It’s just that when it’s covering your eyes and your nose and your mouth and you can’t breathe, and you can’t think straight, it feels like it must go on forever, and there’s no way to get rid of it.

I wonder if I’ll look back on this span and forget the details but just be glad to have made it through. I wonder if I tend to imagine my whole life like that—one big box of Saran Wrap unfolding.

I think about that when I see really happy people. How are they so happy? Why aren’t I so happy? I take happiness for granted because, let’s be honest, I am happy a lot; I just think too much and trip myself, thinking that I only deserve some thin version of cellophane.

The other day, I wrote about seeing Mount Rainier at sunrise. The next day, Pickle and I were out even earlier. I looked out to where the mountain usually is and saw only darkness. But a few moments later, I looked to that same spot and saw the silhouette of a mountain with a soft glow behind it, barely discerning its wavy peaks from the disintegrating dark. I thought about how soon that soft glow would be a full day’s light. I thought about how it hadn’t reached us yet, but to my folks back in PA, the morning was mature: how maybe it was cloudy there, and they couldn’t even see the sun, how maybe people in the Midwest were still enjoying a bright colorful sky that was coming my way. I was suddenly reminded of the curve of the earth and fell into a short period of what I can only call an existential crisis.

I tried to move on with the day. A normal Sunday: go to band, go to church, go to lunch. I couldn’t do it. As I showered, I just kept thinking about that curve—how did I get so small? This big chunk of ground is spinning so slow that I can’t tell and that it takes twenty-four hours to turn around once, yet so fast that I can’t tell and that my feet stay fully grounded. But I barely stand an awkward five feet, nine inches tall against the great heights and depths here. I couldn’t even be seen from an airplane.

I sat down in the shower. I turned the water on extra hot and sat down, letting my skin turn pink in the spots that hit. Pickle stuck her head past the shower curtain and licked my hand. She flinched as the water hit the curtain, thinking it was getting her. Ears back and sad eyes on, she understood—it’s all too big to grasp.

This is actually really embarrassing to write about because I mean, how often do you think about the curve of the earth? How small you are? How temporary this all is?

So here I am, trying just to fathom the fact that I exist somehow and for some reason and that God has some plan to make my atoms click into a smiling young woman and actually mean that smile and recognize that our hope lies, not in this spinning ball.

I imagine the globe is a basketball. When you learn to spin a basketball on one finger, you drop it a lot. You learn to control it, though—how to balance just right to keep it spinning until it loses momentum. I picture God spinning it on one finger. A quick flick of his wrist and it’s off, going going, but when it falls because the ball has stopped, that’s the end. Your life is the length of one balance of a spinning basketball on God’s fingertip.

What hope is there in that? The uncertainty of the length of time; the nauseous churn around and around. No, the hope is that someone has got it in control. And us? We’re just little mites holding on with all we’ve got and trusting that someone knows when it will stop and how it will stop and what it will feel like and who we’ll see when we’re no longer surrounded by everything we thought we knew.

Maybe the six o’clock chime didn’t take me somewhere else but right back to some sanity—the realization that I can’t fool time or place, and that no matter how hard I hope, there are some things I can’t change. And I think that’s a good thing. That dizzy feels you get when you spin around too quickly happens for a reason: to make you slow down.

I rush a lot. Like now, I want to rush out of this sadness, mostly because I want to think I have no reason to be sad. Of course there is reason to be sad, to mourn, to grieve. But there is also plenty of reason to be happy, to sing with joy, to smile. I just wish I could tell that to the tightness in my chest or to the empty feeling in my bones.

There is a line in one of my top ten favorite books, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, that I think describes this feeling perfectly, “So this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”