I wrote this four years ago. It holds up well, I think, and hindsight actually makes it a really sad little piece. I like it a lot.
In Orange County, only poor people ride the bus.
Suburbia, of course. Not a million miles removed from Borehamwood in that respect. There are places where mass transit is effective and places where it exists because some people can’t afford cars. The OC is the latter.
5am and I’m standing outside a deserted parking structure opposite a McDonalds and not much else, one foot in the street while I stare through an intersection like I can identify a bus from some half a mile away by headlights alone. I’m so tired I barely register it even when the gap is small enough to read number and destination, and I find myself thankful once again for how far out of their way these drivers go to stop for passengers. Such a contrast to those moments of London distraction and forgetfulness, where a failure to observe proper protocol invariably results in the bus sailing happily on by, passengers staring down with sadness and a hint of disapproval. Here they slow down if you happen to be standing nearby or even walking past a stop, eyebrows raised in offer of a ride. In California, I have flagged down buses on street corners and in traffic. I have climbed aboard only to discover that I have the wrong change or no change.
“That’s fine,” they say. “Go on and take a seat.”
Like it’s nothing, this something very English in me that is somehow offended by their nonchalant charity.
Understandable, though. Only poor people ride the bus, and poor people are trouble. On my 5am ride through Fullerton and Anaheim, I am very clean shaven and very smartly dressed and very, very white. I carry this off only because I am used to traveling this way, because I am of a species that isn’t quite as alien to my fellow travelers as those overtaking in their SUVs. Each new arrival takes a moment to stare at me, and most end that initial inspection with a small nod of acknowledgment or acceptance or some form of etiquette I don’t quite understand.
I sit back in my seat and watch the street-lights strobe by, the men and women standing at the bus stops and sitting outside coffee and donut shops that are anything but Starbucks. I feel comfortable here, and I find myself craving these small friendships and secret handshakes and murmured conversations in Spanish. So far from the corporate house of cards I stand in day in and day out.
Days later, when my father-in-law makes an off-hand comment about Orange County having a better quality of life than anywhere else, I close my eyes and remember the chill of the morning, the gentle rocking of the bus, the sense of rootlessness and transience.
From the bus to the train station, another world, taking a weaving path through a business park to dodge the sprinkler-spray that tends perfect lawns with blanket coverage so that the cracks in the sidewalk are streams feeding into a gutter-river that keeps the storm drains gurgling cheerfully. My night-time wanderings have long since confirmed that these sprinklers - a fixture throughout Southern California - chitter intermittently throughout the night, wasting millions - perhaps billions - of gallons of water on neatly trimmed decorative lawns. Meanwhile, the drought holds steady as the fourth or fifth item on the news all summer long.
Half an hour on that platform, waiting for the 5:55. I grind my teeth while the fingers of my right hand wriggle and flex, form a fist and then abruptly straighten, rub frantically against one another as though attempting dislocation. Half an hour on that platform and I just quit smoking.
A train from LA down into Orange County, a way of avoiding the angry mess of traffic that congregates on the freeways every morning and evening, is an example of an effective mass transit system. By the time I pick up this service, we’re already in north Orange County, and the carriage is full of commuters. This is the white collar version of the bus phenomena, loud and bright and jarring, every conversation fighting to be the most important, the air occasionally filled with high, desperate female laughter from a group seated close by. I receive no stares and no nods. It’s very clear who knows who else, who is in the Monday-Friday Commuter Club and who is not. I feel I’m intruding somehow, a feeling magnified by the fact that there is one person more in this carriage than there are seats. I am the extra.
It strikes me that this is ultimately how I feel about living here, caught somewhere between these warring states of alienation and belonging. Some days are bus days, some are trains. Sometimes I feel differently about each. I like this idea of transience on its own terms, of moving through the world and adapting to different environments, of being able to spend my morning in the company of people who grew up the way I did on my way to an afternoon spent teaching a class about leadership in a retail environment to graduates. I like the idea that I can still do that and be genuine in both moments.
And I feel like that’s slipping away.
posted at 10:13 PM