Ode to public transport

In which riding a bus keeps me sane in America. Or, how our entanglement with others is the most grounding thing I know.

Readers. Are you there? Hi! I’m writing this from a plane somewhere above the Atlantic en route home to Nairobi after 2+ months in the US. My trip started with my grandmother’s funeral and ended with my sister’s wedding, with equal parts grief and gladness in between. My life is full of things waiting for the spaciousness to be shared: half-baked yet possibly-still-delectable ruminations on ultra marathons and death and my family’s pilgrimage to Minidoka and imprisonment and inherited trauma and resilience and love. My travels spanned Johannesburg to Durban to Nashville, New York, Boston, Montana, Idaho, Hawaii, to Los Angeles, Davis, Oakland, and Seattle. I communed with so many loved ones that I’ve know for decades. But what I want to write to you about now are strangers. And how our entanglement with others is the most grounding thing I know.

Seattle’s Orca bus turning me tender

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This song (& Jon Batiste’s entire World Music Radio album) was on repeat while I wrote this.

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Seattle, August 2023.

I’m late, sweaty, and slightly smelly. But for every two minutes I spend curbside in the heatwave waiting for my delayed bus, I’m buoyed by a passerby’s blessing. “Oh honey, your whole BEING is vibe,” chirps a silver-haired woman, motioning back and forth from my head to my toes with the free arm that her pit-mix puppy isn’t pulling across the pavement. “Your shoes are dope. You wanna check out the game I made?” “I like your shirt.” “It’s hot today. Stay cool.” “Nice shoes.” What I forgo in perspiration and efficiency I make up for tenfold in the delight of brushing up against strangers.

The bus’ arrival brings even more sweetness. A grey-haired man with a foot-long beard and a limp repeatedly taps his wallet against the payment machine in vain.“Don’t worry. Just go.” the blonde bus driver waves him on.

“You want me to hold that for you?” a purple jumpsuit-clad woman asks a man in a stained sunshine yellow shirt white knuckling his groceries. Cornflakes and tomatoes teeter towards the edge of his push cart. They strike up a conversation. A shared delight for fruit and food banks bridges differences in age and race and gender. “That your brother?” Lavender Lady asks. Her chin extends toward Sunshine Shirt Man’s companion who steadies his own scooter full of food. I estimate they’re both in their 50s. “Naw, that’s my son.” Everyone within earshot erupts in effervescent laughter. “He’s my neighbor, actually.” “You ever been to West Seattle Food Bank? It’s top tier. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and nothing is expired.” More tips to trade.

A gaggle of Gen Zers reach their stop. “Thank you.” “Thank you.” Thank you.” They take their thrifted wire framed glasses and oversized tees and leave a chorus of gratitude as they exit.

There’s a woman with a broom and a sleeping bag that drags behind her until another passenger lifts it as if it were a veil.  A man with glassy almond eyes and glossy black hair enters the back of the bus, looks around at the 15 of us, and nods. A silent shared agreement. He doesn’t pay. We don’t snitch.

Neighbor gets out. He has one leg on the scooter. I just now notice he’s only got the one. Maybe he’s missing something.

More likely it’s me who’s been missing something. If joy is entanglement, (as Ross Gay posits), I’ve been limiting mine. I’ve skipped too many opportunities to commune in a packed bus, amidst our packed lives.

Public transport saves me from the illusion of isolation pervasive in an evermore dismembered United States. It saves me from my own loneliness—the unique unease (our collective dis-ease?) I feel when visiting a country I used to call home.

Back in 2009 my oldest Kenyan friend Mueni told me she never aspires to live in America. “USA stands for U Stand Alone,” she whispered to me in the bed she shared with me for three months. She’s right. Partially. Those our country has most oppressed have always dreamt up and birthed more tender realities. Our collective salvation is and has always been at the margins.

Too often, the convenience of private cars, online shopping with same-day delivery, and all the other trappings of wealth—segregated schools, hospitals, places of worship, neighborhoods—prevent us from accessing what we all so desperately need: connection. Western ways of being, exacerbated by the insulation of privilege, have created an impoverished existence for many considered wealthy. People can opt out of the places and postures that keep us human(e) and whole. It seems the more “self reliant” we can be, the more we can miss the blessed generosity and kindness fostered and found only when we can’t go from point A to point B alone—metaphorically and literally.

I reckon public and shared and sometimes sweaty and slow systems that prioritize the needs of those most vulnerable in our communities present the salve we all need. How can we resist the seductive but senseless notion of separateness? How can we heed the holiness in encounters with people different from ourselves? How can we better invest in our collective flourishing? Riding public transport might be a perfect place to start.