Life Partners. And Buses.

Everyone was standing there silent, in their own worlds, in this shared space.
Cell phones in hands, people-watching, baby-cradling, young lovers smooching.
The life of public transportation.
Stories in every nook and cranny.

"Look Mom, our bus is coming!" A little girl leans over the sideway curb as she tugs at her mother's hand.

A line forms. Everyone still silent, except for the thoughts and conversations stirring in their minds.

An old man begins to speak.
"Ladies first. Go ahead pretty ladies. You guys go first. I'll wait. Ladies first."

"But, Senor, this is the line for the San Jose bus. You go. We're not getting on this one." A young woman chimes up.

The old man chuckles and places his hands on her shoulders.
"Oh, well then God bless you."

"Que Dios te bendiga."
"God bless you."

He continues down the line with a cute grin on his face as he lays his weathered hand upon tense shoulders with blessings.

I choose a seat by the window. The wind blows in my hair as I unconsciously eaves drop on the conversations being held around me. My eyes are alive with the endless panorama outside the glass pane.

I am in love with this bus ride.
This journey.

I go back to El Salvador in some place within me.
Oh, so many buses.

Those infamous bus rides in El Salvador.

I don't think I loved them all, admittedly.

Maybe it had to do with that time a random lady handed me her baby and I was afraid I would drop him as the bus bumped down our rocky road. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there was a 4 person minimum to each person's personal space. Or the chickens. Most likely, it was the chickens.

Either way, stepping foot on that bus last week with the old man and his blessings, I smiled.


"Maybe she'll be European".
He said to me as I sat next to him on the couch that I longed to know for so many months, my body turned to face him, as he looked away. Sitting there admiring the perfection of his overgrown facial hair. 
As if these words were just words.
As if he imagined this were some movie, that I was watching in the cinema, hoping the girl there, that was me, would be strong and just pack up and go, knowing this wasn't her story. 


The town is full of people.
Selling fruit from wooden crates on roadside stands.
A fountain in the centre of a cobblestone path lined with walls dressed in paint.
Men whistle at me as I go by and say words that I choose not to hear.
There is hand holding and sweet caresses.
Some people look at me and smile as I go by.
Other people don't know I have been there.
Some say buenos dias.
Others snarl at my regards.

I like it: this town, this community.
Each in his or her own world.
Sharing space.

Living life the only way they know how.
I look up and I smile
at the ability to feel love.


His bus pulls away and I'm not sad.
It's not like the storyline of the movie. 
I feel full of life and okay and understanding.
Something in me wants to skip and it's not because of the leaving.
It is because of this loving
of life.

I love the bus rides.
I love the people on them and around them.
I love old people and their ways of being. I love babies and the way they hold nothing back. 
I love the angry people, in their own passionate way.

I love the people
I chose to have in my life
Who have shown me the areas
Where I have a story that I need to re-write. 


I guess it's true, that life is about the journey.
And the more you learn to love every step of the way,
The more free it will be.

I am still working on this, loving every step of the journey thing...

But I believe in it.

For if my lover is life
Then I'll never be alone.

So
I don't have a life partner
Not a European
Not an anyone

But
I have a partner I call life

And s/he makes space for me
To be alive
And to be happy

To grow
And to be free

S/he is not judgemental
S/he just gives me what I need to learn

And let's me be me.

A person
Who loves bus rides,
usually.
Who likes to sing in the shower
Who plays sports
And practices Yoga
Because these, too, are things that make her heart sing.

A person
Who gets angry
And is sometimes inappropriate
Who likes to read
And draw
And swim
And who likes to be alone.

A person
Who likes to share, too
That little light we all have within us
When our egos are tired
Or we are connected to our passion

That is the space
Love exists.

In you
In me
On bus rides

In life.