My bus commute takes twice as long as it does to drive to work in my car, but that time is not wasted. I put those extra minutes to good use daydreaming, or reading a poem. I listen to music, write notes to myself, watch people and stare out the window.
Riding the bus creates a suspended state of dreamy traveling in your daily schedule, unlike being behind the wheel yourself. You can be lost in your thoughts while you are carried into or out of the details of your day alongside the living, breathing current of humanity in transit.
When you are bound by a public transportation schedule there are no lingering goodbyes. You are like Cinderella leaving the ball running out the door with one shoe just to make the 7:20, leaving your husband in his robe sipping his morning coffee or your friends to drink their wine.
If you are a serial people watcher, the bus is full of humanity to observe. How can the heavy, old woman with missing teeth find so much to smile about? The girl in the bright yellow pea coat owns no less than three fabulous large handbags, and rotates them according to a schedule I have not yet been able to predict. I can easily devote my whole ride to creating elaborate stories about the lives my fellow riders. Sometimes there are chatty, slightly crazy people who engage you in conversation when you wish for silence. Other times the space is filled by the stormy moping of teenagers plugged into iPods on their way to Northland Prep and you want to be the talking crazy person yourself.
Most of the world rides the bus, the train or the ferry to work. I feel solidarity with my friend in Brooklyn who rides the subway 40 minutes to work in Manhattan. I think of the kids on the Navajo Reservation who ride the bus more than an hour to school each way. In Nicaragua you could take a brightly painted old school bus from one tiny town to the next for very little money. It was not express travel and involved being pressed close to people with lots of small children, farm animals and large amounts of fruit, but in theory you could get just about anywhere.
For many of us the bus is a necessity. When I first moved to Arizona I had no car. I moved here from the East Coast where public transportation was readily available. I lived in south Phoenix on five acres in a doublewide trailer, which 15 years ago was on the edge of town. Every day I rode my bike two miles down a stretch of road along South Mountain to the bus stop, loaded my bike on the bus and rode 45 minutes to my temp job clear on the other side of town.
That was a period in my life when time was plentiful but money was not. I read novels by Barbara Kingsolver and wondered what my life would be like. Now life is packed with hurrying and time itself is a novelty. When I ride the bus I am not far away from the young woman I was then and to the daydreaming little girl riding the bus to school.
If more of us rode the bus in Flagstaff, it would run more frequently, with more routes and it might cost less. With more riders there would be less traffic and maybe less wars over oil. You can buy an unlimited monthly bus pass to ride the Mountain Line (which is fueled by biodiesel) for $34, which is about how much it costs to fill my gas tank.
In Flagstaff the bus drops me off near the Elden Hills golf course. The night air is crisp but the stars are shining brightly, sharing the sky with a waxing crescent moon. Between them there is just enough light for me to cut across the golf course without a light. I am lost in the moment, with Brett Dennen singing to “make the most of this life, because it moves so fast there’s no time for perfection.” In the distance I can see the glow of our porch light and not a minute too soon.
