There's Frost on the Pumpkins!

Everyday before I go to work I am either walking or sitting at my bus stop.  Also everyday before I go to work I see or chat with one of my fellow pedestrians.  Her name is Marilyn, she is probably in her 60's, and she is perhaps the sweetest person you've ever met.  The title of this post is something that she told me on a particularly chilly day at the bus stop, and although I've never heard this expression before, I will now begin to use it.

The reason I write about my friend is not because she has a clever way with words, but that she has a way of purposeful sweetness.  She waves and smiles and literally every motor vehicle that passes by, regardless of which way it is going, and regardless of knowing whether or the passengers can see her.  In fact she even waves at busses, perhaps mostly at the driver, but nonetheless.  Additionally, her daily stroll is for more than her constitution, she stops at every house on her route that has a newspaper at the curb and walks it up to their doorway.  This is an all more important gesture during the damp and dark days of Northwest winter. All with a joy-exuding smile on her face. 

All this to say my friend Marilyn is super.

The world should be so super.

The future past.

I have always had the habit of imagining a place at different stages.  My biggest imaginings are from places where people are.  Slowly deconstructing the things we've brought...interstates...sidewalks...lights....trash cans...cars...buildings...labradoodles...taking them away one by one.  Always idealizing what this virginal world I was creating would be like...how peaceful, quite, lonely, beautiful, natural...correct.

But I think I am going to try and stop this.

Why?  Because it makes me bitter and bitterness is not the staircase that change climbs. If the world is going to transform into something closer to those ideals...admittedly my ideals and no one else's...then it has to hop on the hope-wagon.  Maybe the first step to having less roads is an innovation in trasnport...or city planning...or something yet unheard.  Maybe if we start sharing buildings more efficiently we can have fewer...what if we took some down.  Other countries fit way more people in smaller spaces.  Not saying we should, just that we could.  Would people walk to work if they could...or perhaps if they just thought the could? More passion is beginning to grow in my heart for changes to the positive, healthy, and new.

 Growing backwards is my new m.o.

Riding the Bus!

Reasons I love to ride the bus:

1. It is like being at the fair...I give them money I get to ride!
2. Saying hello to the bus driver.
3. Watching people sleep. Specifically their faces.
4. Interesting accessories - most recent...alligator skin man purse
5. Watching people board the bus - ecpecially if they have to jog  - even more so if they are jogging with a backpack!
6. Smiling. People don't have happy faces on when they are on a bus. It is as if they all agreed to be emotionless as not to interact to heavily with anyone else.  I always try to maintain a minimum of a slight grin.
7. The Robotic voiceover telling you where to get on and off.
8. Sitting in close proximity to strangers.
9. Awkward eye contact.
10. Being relatively unconfident about when to get off...or on sometimes.
11. Saving the earth!

That is all. It is just a good thing.