Did you come here to listen? I came here to tell you I love you. I want to love everyone. Inside my locket, I hold a reminder to this effect. The brass oval hangs from a chain I got discounted at a local vintage shop. It rests on my chest, glowing warm with my warmth. All are our atoms vibrate as one.
A week ago today, Boyfriend and I got stuck. Planted on the tarmac of Newark Liberty Airport, New Jersey. We sat inside the plane for 6 hours, waiting for them to de-ice the wings. Waiting to re-fuel. Waiting to take off. Nobody freaked. Some passengers (myself included), paced up and down the aisle, trying to find air pockets not-so-saturated with plane exhaust.
I don’t panic. That wasn’t allowed when I was young. Emotions are there, but so often the sensation is unlatched from color. In November, my mother was hospitalized and I couldn’t tell if I was crazy or if she was really sick. My face was melting with stress, not panic. Panic is noise. One-thousand alarms raging in a glass room. Even when the fires broke out and we didn’t know which way the winds would carry the embers, it wasn’t panic. I hear no alarms, even when I want to. But I tell you, there’s a hum when I touch the earth. Such volume is not invisible.
It’s like,
no sound as the drill splits concrete
or seeing only
spaces between every
falling
rain drop.
Walking around in London, I don’t take its cold fresh oxygen for granted. How cute that Earth even has an atmosphere. Our planet spins inside one giant bubble—and if any scientist randomly reads this, I know that’s a major simplification. Going different places brings out the color in my cheeks, but leaving LA doesn’t mean I leave LA. How could I, really? I’m just an extension of her sprawl. LA practically assembled the bones of my body.
I learned to drive at 19—three years too late in my opinion, ten years too soon in my mother’s. She didn’t want to see me behind the wheel. Instead of driving from West LA to my high school in Downtown, I took the Big Blue Bus. The entire bus fleet in Santa Monica is painted two tones of soothing blue, prepared at any moment to camouflage with the deep ocean hues. We all accept this splash of whimsy, but who named an entire transit system something so cartoonish? According to the Santa Monica government website, the Big Blue Bus is a clever moniker that caught on somewhere in the late 1940s. The Big Blue Bus became official in 1999, but the website offers no one specific to claim responsibility. For those building a case for simulation theory, I’d say the Big Blue Bus is a damning piece of evidence. We’re just perched in some child’s bedroom simulation set. I take comfort in this notion, life’s not that serious.
Before the simulation caught up to me, I went to high school. Waking at 5:25am to catch the 6:13am ride downhill. To get out of our apartment complex, I had to shimmy through the gap between the electric garage door and a menacing thorny fence. I’m eternally late. In the rush, I’d catch on a serrated branch, ripping up a number of my dresses, the fragile lining of my jackets. Every morning and every night, I took two buses. The 14 bus ferried me to the 10 bus, AKA the business boys express. It followed a rare route, jumping on the freeway, leaving its usual Westside perimeter to bring people in suits to their downtown office jobs. The bus drivers got to know me. Usually it was just me on the 14 bus at the early morning hour. The 14 bus driver loved when I stood up front. We’d chatter as he slowed to stop at yellow lights. It was fine by me, I was happy to make someone laugh. My material was school-centric: biology tests, musical auditions, cafeteria food. Then one day the bus driver asked me about Halloween. What did I do to celebrate? Did I meet up with any friends? Did I…have any photos of me in costume?
It was weird. I bit the inside of my cheek. Told him no, forgot to take pictures, I wasn’t a big Halloween girl.
That was the end of our friendship. Time to let go. The only trouble—I had to catch another bus to school. Tear out the door a whole 30 minutes early, then wait even longer for the second bus. Or accept my fate and be late to first period, risking some sort of mark on my school record.
The 10 bus driver was the silent type: hot jawline, perfectly sculpted goatee. This guy never looked happy to see me, never gave me more than a nod when I scanned my pass. Maybe a tightened grip of his leather gloves on the large steering wheel. When we hit the freeway, he’d slide dark oval glasses onto the bridge of his nose. A stylish protection from the sun hoisting itself into the sky. I’d squint into glare, tracing the grey clouds that gathered in the secret of night.
Some mornings, even if I was earlyearly, the 10 bus would fly ahead of schedule. Then I had to wait alone for at least 20 minutes on a weird corner of town. This got me nervous. I’d do anything to avoid the void between buses. To complicate matters, the 14 stopped across the street from the 10’s stop. I’d burst through the sliding plastic doors and run across Santa Monica Blvd. Giving it everything and more—Doc Martens Mary Janes thumping, giant coat flying behind me, hair blocking my eyes. My puffy satin tote (a custom piece from my mother) hitting the side of my body with so much force, a yellow bruise perma-stained my hip. At my most desperate, I’d sprint against the light, dodging cars if necessary.
After an especially chaotic go across the boulevard, I boarded the 10 bus with no time to spare. Totally out of breath and triumphant. As I fumbled for my fare card, the 10 bus driver cleared the silence from his throat.
If you run like that again, I won’t open my doors for you. I can see you waiting across the street, I’ll hold the bus. Wait for the light to change. Then you cross the street. I’ve seen too much stuff go wrong, okay?
It took me a moment to even process that he was speaking. I nodded, apologized and promised.
Then I walked to an empty seat near the back and started to cry. He showed his cards, ever so briefly. An indication of care, with no call for further interaction. As the years went on, there was no spoken acknowledgement of our moment, but he lived up to his end of the bargain. Whenever I found myself stationed at the crosswalk, in the groundless space between one bus and another, he waited with his foot on the brake. Pausing the forward momentum of time just for me.
A kindness beyond the skeleton of duty. Offering a relief I never expected, so I could untwirl the knots in my stomach just a bit. You grow accustomed to a form of tension, relaxing takes practice. Have we hardened in a certain angle, held the pose too long to break? I’m seeing it everywhere. To let go and find a more dynamic existence might feel like rupture. Small tears in the seams, maybe thread by thread, before the full release.
Collective relief was palpable last Sunday. Celebration, yes, but first comes relief. You can’t cheer until you’ve taken a breath, you can’t breathe when every muscle is cemented by stress. I, of course, am talking about the Grammy award for Album of the Year. No one wanted to win against Beyonce, not again. It must be a stiff drink of emotions: you pour everything into an album, it gets nominated for Album of the Year and you seriously do not want to win. I think a lot of people in the Crypto Arena (STAPLES CENTER FOR LIFE) zipped that feeling into their shapewear, hoping to flatten the complexity into a placid contentment. Not that I subscribe to award importance, but it feels so nice to watch people win. When I watch acceptance speeches, I can’t help but cry. Award shows are a flashy festival of tears. I cry all the time. Sadness is not the main catalyst. I cry when I look at my boyfriend because I love him so much. I cry when I look at my dog because she is the most perfect. I cry when I tell the truth because it moves mountains. Even though I know the truth I cradle in my palms may look different in your hands. The British spell color as colour but we all know a green banana from a yellow one. And if I slip on a peel, will you give me a hand? It’s okay if you laugh, it’s really not that serious.
In fact, when I finally figure out how to take myself seriously, it’s over for you bitches. Hard to say if that will pan out, I’d done a lot of work to untwirl the knots. Absurdity can’t help but outrank seriousity—but maybe in another life, another simulation.
Ugh, yes to the sweet impact of moments of kindness that ask for nothing in exchange. Yes to the knowing that a friendship of circumstance has just run its course. Yes to the not invisible hum.
Love