{"id":6794,"date":"2012-11-08T12:27:39","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T17:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=6794"},"modified":"2012-11-08T12:27:39","modified_gmt":"2012-11-08T17:27:39","slug":"a-spectator-riding-into-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=6794","title":{"rendered":"A Spectator Riding Into the City"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Waiting to whisk observant folks past mind-expanding sights of all sorts<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m on a bus to the Metro which will take me to into town so I can visit the Historical Society of Washington.\u00a0 Been a month and a half since I’ve been on a bus and it sure feels good, like seeing an old friend or slipping into a pair of well-worn jeans.\u00a0 I paid with cash, something I never did as a commuter in what seems like the distant past when I always swiped a card to pay for the ride.\u00a0 Putting a bill and coins into the box makes me feel alive, vibrant, and not just a moribund commuter.<\/p>\n

The vistas and views I get while on public transportation thrill me.\u00a0 Sitting on a bus as it glides down the street pretty near always opens my eyes, my brain, my heart and soul to ideas and images and so many mind-expanding bits and pieces.\u00a0 Sounds a little like a drug, doesn’t it, but it’s not.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Just the good old Metro bus.<\/p>\n

We’ve got a changing of the driver now but I don’t care.\u00a0 I feel no irritation or impatience like I might have when I commuted and Had To Get To My Very Important Job.<\/p>\n

So here I sit on the bus, a spectator.\u00a0 I love spectating, watching things stream by.\u00a0 Or maybe I should say: things standing still and being beautiful or ugly or interesting or boring while I stream by.\u00a0 A thought, one of dozens right now, floats to the surface and gets my attention:\u00a0 Should I worry about this?\u00a0 Am I more a watcher than a doer, an arm’s lengther instead of an up-to-my-elbows kinda fellow?\u00a0 I think I hope not but then again I think, well, maybe the world needs a few observant slightly removed watchers to, you know, look and interpret and write it all down.\u00a0 Ah, all this thinking and reasoning and worrying and philosophical\u00a0 cogitating.\u00a0 I’m going to just sit back now and enjoy this fine, fine view for a while.<\/p>\n

So now I’m on the Metro, the subway that serves Washington D.C.\u00a0 For a while before the train gets to the city itself it runs above ground.\u00a0 That means I can keep on, like on the bus but just faster, watching the world whizz by.\u00a0 Oh, here’s the tunnel.\u00a0 This train is underground now so no scenery to see outside but plenty inside.\u00a0 Lots of people here sitting on benches or standing grasping a chrome hand-hold.\u00a0 I’m thinking this whole culture of D.C. commuting is an arms length experience.\u00a0 Hardly anybody talking, almost, though there’s maybe a pair of folks chattering away.\u00a0 Here in the Very Important Capital of the United States Of America we prefer our subways and buses Quiet If You Don’t Mind.\u00a0 Also, Please carry yourself with Decorum and Tasteful Dignity, if you’d be so kind.\u00a0 And for Pete’s Sake, if you’re not going to scurry up or down the escalator, please Stand on the Right and give the rest of us room to race to Wherever we are Going.\u00a0 Thank You Very Much.<\/p>\n

I like people-watching on the Metro.\u00a0 I watch ’em on the sly since we don’t go for any gawking around here either.\u00a0 But I do sneak plenty of peaks, enough to get that fellow’s measure or that lady’s personality; to form an idea of what he or she is about.\u00a0 I once thought up an idea for a short story about a lonely guy with no friends who wanted\u00a0 a girl friend or guy friend or maybe even one of each, it didn’t matter.\u00a0 He just wanted someone to talk to and listen to and maybe share a meal with from time to time.\u00a0 Everyday on the Metro he’d watch the people around him and make up stories about them, create their life stories, even, just based on what the person looked like\u00a0 and how he or she acted.\u00a0 My short story would mostly consist of his stories which, gradually, would become more real to him than his real life.\u00a0 They would actually be about what he wanted, not what he observed, about the subjective within instead of the objective without.\u00a0 He would write them all down and become so engrossed with his manufactured non-existent realities he would lose touch with the real reality.\u00a0 Of course at the end he would still have no friends, still be no closer than arm’s length, farther away actually, to a real relationship in the real world.\u00a0 Kinda sad thing I thought up, huh?\u00a0 I still think it would make a good story.<\/p>\n

So, it looks like I’m at my stop now.\u00a0 Gonna step out and visit the Historical Society.\u00a0 The bus and Metro got my eyes open and my brain working, made me ready for this new (to me) neighborhood where there’ll be more to see, more spectating to do and maybe, a chance to get up to my elbows, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m on a bus to the Metro which will take me to into town so I can visit the Historical Society of Washington.\u00a0 Been a month and a half since I’ve been on a bus and it sure feels good, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,10,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6794"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6808,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6794\/revisions\/6808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}