Longing for bus rides
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You don't realize how much you rely on little
things like long bus rides and sitting in public
libraries to feed your sense of being connected
to the world until you don't have it readily
available anymore.

It's a strange feeling because it feels like an
odd thing to miss: sitting on the bus, being
surrounded by people, at least a few of which
manage to piss you off through some kind of rude
behavior, trying to concentrate on what you're
reading through the starts and stops and the
noise and the movement.

But it's also a time you're very *there*, in the
moment, surrounded by a bunch of people who live
in your city your neighborhood sometimes
even your block and there's something very
special about that that you miss when you
haven't had it regularly for two years.

I miss seeing regulars on the bus whose daily
and weekly routines intersected with mine in
this way that we noticed each other but rarely,
if ever, spoke. It's a funny kind of intimacy to
have someone whose name you don't know but whose
face and favorite outfits and earbuds and
cellphone are all familiar parts of the
routine. It's a comfortable, sweet, kind of
familiarity.

I'm not romanticizing the experience either even
if I'm describing it romantically. The rare
times I travel around the city now there's a
strange kind of relief to the act and it reminds
me of the rhythm I'd been in at the end of
2019/start of 2020 where I'd take a bus north to
the extreme end of town, reading and taking
notes the whole time, then sit at a table in the
library for a few hours writing, then head back
home and go back to reading. For me, thinking
requires motion and motion is hard to come by
lately.

So, yeah, I miss when riding the bus didn't feel
like dice rolls with my family's well-being.