This bus stop feels like home. Twice a day, fourteen times a week, over seven hundred times a year, I�ll sit at this bus stop and wait for a ride. Where I am headed, sometimes I have no clue. Sometimes, I�m just trying to get away from here, but �here� always seems to follow me.
Around me, others are also trying to go somewhere, too. Their belongings are packed, their pasts overstuffed into plastic bags, travel suitcases, or simply trickled down into just a backpack. It is strange to me how a whole being�s life can be summed up by the contents of the lives stuffed inside these bags. We are all travelers of the underground, all part of the brotherhood of the streets, some of us more easily recognized by the contents of our travel gear.
A woman in a dark heavy parka stands with a dark heavy backpack and a darker heavier travel suitcase. A heavy set old man with a tattered fishnet bag sits while his bag is overflowing with various trinkets and yellowing newspapers as if this makeshift stuffing can fill his empty life. Another man, hidden under multiple layers of clothing, grips tightly to a couple of trash bags as what is inside these bags is not as important as is the need to cling to something, anything that resembles a life.
Of travel attire, my own choice is the messenger bag. While it is not able to carry as much, it still holds the illusion of being part of society. At least it did at the beginning. But now, my fingernails are dirty, my hair is uncombed, and my clothes are unwashed. I now have the appearance of what I tried so hard not to be; by carrying my life around with me in one bag, I am now no different than most of my brethren at the bus stop.
The rickety clickety clack of wobbly shopping cart wheels approaches the bus shelter. The jingle jangle juggle of bottles and cans mixes with the nonsensical obscenities uttered from the filthy raggedy man who pushes the behemoth down the street. In the cart is an assortment of dirty blankets, half eaten food, half read books, and other forgotten things from half used lives. We all watch this man pass and inward, inside the cave of our collective minds, we fear and admire the raggedy man. For in that little shopping cart, he has his whole world and no world. He has removed himself far away from society, yet still, he lives within it, now chained to the security of the cart. His very existence screams I have reached the end and this is what it looks like.
As he passes by, we all eye our own bags and wonder how long we each have until we reach the end. Everyone has a shopping cart waiting for them around the next corner in life, and I just hope I never find mine.
Soon, the sparkety spickety clack of the electrified bus, the signature sound made by SF transit, travels down the line. The bus stops for a second at the shelter and appraises us. Here we are the travelers, the unloved, unwashed collective of bag carriers.
Eyes stare out from windows. People with smaller bags and material lives, who carry the burden of existence not on their shoulders, but locked away safely behind closed doors.
In their eyes, fear and admiration fight for judgment of us. They have bills, cares, and homes to worry about. They cling to their own bags, which are smaller, more personable, fragile things filled with keys, money, and identification- passports of the homebound. But soon, they know, they could be out here, and so they clutch to their things.
The bus driver doesn�t open the door and let us on. Instead, he drives off and leaves us there. In his eyes is only fear. His rent is late, his mortgage is overextended, his wife is leaving he is deep in debt. Outside the door, we are a reflection all that could be. We are a disease to him, a contagion; our plight can be caught like the cold. The very sight of us hits too close to home for him, so he just leaves us there for the next driver to deal with.
As he drives off, we don�t shout or carry on, we don�t question his decision. We just accept his judgment of our fellowship as day and night, week after week, month after month, through storm or shine, we will wait at these stops and wait to be taken somewhere, anywhere, anyplace but here.
Because here is home.