I’d gotten off work yesterday and was fortunate to catch a bus that wasn’t crowded. I got on and found a seat towards the back. I took it. Sitting in the seat next to me was a young, clean-looking guy working on his clean laptop computer. I was in the window seat looking at the trees and cars and people outside, trying to connect A to B to C…in m y m i n d--just sitting there. I found myself constrained. The guy next to me took much space and I was squeezed, wedged against the window. It was as if the guy was connected to an air hose that caused him to expand beyond the horizons. He was entranced by his laptop. I looked at the screen to see what was so captivating. The words on the screen had to do about business and finance. No wonder I felt squeezed. I saw an empty seat a few rows up so I got up. I grabbed my backpack and made for the aisle. I bumped into the guy next to me, making rigorous contact with shoulder, his knee—knocking into his precious laptop (By accident, of course). I got to the other seat. The one next to it was empty. I got a chance to unwind and stretch out a bit. I looked out the window and saw familiar neigborhoods but I didn’t know a single face. But the feeling I have for my city stays the same—love, anger—a lover I vow to leave but never part from.
10 minutes go by. A guy notices a woman sitting across the aisle wearing a Philadelphia Flyers t-shirt. “You a flyers fan?” he asked. “No, but my brother is” the woman responded. What ensued was a conversation about Philadelphia and all the wonderful places/nuances about that city. After much hockey talk, I began to get drowsy. Are there no more native San Franciscans around to talk about growing up in the city? I got up and moved again. I got nothing against Philly or another other city but one gets tired of bus conversations involving transplants from Oklahoma or Nebraska reminiscing about back home. I’ve sat through bus stories from these folk, providing details about how they moved here, found a job on their second day and celebrated by eating Thai food or some various noodle dish. I don’t like Thai food. But perhaps I’ll visit Oklahoma or Nebraska someday, and eat at a Thai restaurant.
The bus was approaching my stop—the end of the line. I rang the bell. The bus approached the stop but the driver kept driving for another block before halting. I got off the bus and headed to the crosswalk.
The light was red and I noticed a woman crossing the street into oncoming traffic. I walked quickly behind her. She limped as she moved very slowly. The cars were approaching. I thought that perhaps she was not lucid, disoriented, seeing another reality though her own unique eyes. I caught up to her. “Are you ok, mam?” I asked. She looked up at me. “I had knee surgery recently” she said. “I’m trying to get to my car on the corner”. She pointed to her car that sat a half block away. She took a hold of my arm. The cars on either side of us stopped, their lights held us in focus. No chanting of “Whose street…our street!” was needed. The space was ours and we shared it, taking our time.
I looked at the woman’s face. She was guiding me across the street. “Are you Filipina?” I asked. Her eyes lit up. “No” she said. “I’m from Hawaii…I’m Hawaiian and Portuguese” she said, smiling and giving my arm a slight tug. We walked across that street. She told me she grew up in Maui. In the San Francisco air I felt and tasted the Hawaiian breeze touch me, washing over my mind. My feet were walking, matching hers, step by step—the dirt clinging to the bottoms while I told her that my family had lived in Waipahu, a place with many Filipinos.
We walked together in that Hawaiian soil, across Maui, across Waipahu--slowly in the night sky. We got to the curb. She slowly made it onto the sidewalk. We got to her car. A light shined from half a block away. It was my bus, the #5. “That’s my bus” I said. The light got closer. The cars were moving again, back and forth. The woman opened the car door and I ran to the bus stop. The warm wind from Maui was still on my face.