Ogden and Colfax. To the East.

Yes, I am once again writing about the 15. The bus. The Vomit Comet, as Wendy once called it. Today was quite a day to leave my iPod at home. The man with the generic Dallas jersey and faded blue hair speaking to his toothless friend about prison sentences, where to meet after work, prison sentences. They're smoking their cigarettes with a sense of urgency--the life of a bus rider is one of constant expectation. The bus will arrive, the bus will arrive, the bus will arrive.

I board the bus with my small pile of lunch from work. The box with the salad, the foil-wrapped wheat bread, the small Styrofoam ramequin filled with balsamic vinaigrette. They were all precariously balanced, and the dressing, predictably, nose-dove to the floor of the incredibly crowded rush hour bus. It bled. I awkwardly recovered it and held it for the rest of the ride. The puddle of brown spread and shifted with the ride.

I finally settled in, and noticed a brown skinned man with a Broncos bandanna covering the majority of his long black hair, sitting five or so passengers away from me. A five year old boy sat restlessly on the bench next to the man, fidgeting, playing with his plastic preying mantis. The boy's mother asked questions, and the man with the bandanna spoke. Difficult to tell if the mother and the man were friends, or bus acquaintances. I can't tell if it matters, for the purposes of this blog, that the two were already friends. The mother hugged the man when she deboarded.

Bandanna spoke about his ankle monitor. His sentence, his parole, his remaining time: 28 days. He said to the woman, "It doesn't matter where you're going, just matters where you are." He spoke about his impending move, his new apartment, his new place. He showed the boy his face mask and construction hat.

It doesn't matter where you're going, just matters where you are. I try to think a bit about the sentence. Cliche, of course, but pertinent in some way. My life is rushing lately. Bending and expanding and shifting. I'm rushing. How Buddhist it is! It matters where we are. It matters where I am. On this bus, sitting next to the only other white women. The one to my left has a City Books tote bag, and the one to my right is reading a food magazine.

Where I am: Denver, City Park Neighborhood, winter, age 24. Where I am: The strange interlude between childhood and adulthood. The interlude that lasts the longest minutes of your life. Minutes that take years and decades. I'm shifting, rushing, going.

The man with the ankle monitor is moving on--28 days he has left, and his new apartment is waiting for him. The young boy reminds his mother of his presence by throwing his small plastic bug across the aisle, and for a moment we are all on the bus. Together. It's where we are. Together.