The Smallest of Trips, The Longest of Journeys
I used to take the city bus. Sometimes for fun. Sometimes out of necessity. As a storyteller, it was always a fertile source of fascination. And not having to drive or deal directly with the scurge that is L.A. traffic was gloriously freeing at times.
And then one day I stopped.
Panic became a stronger force in my life than art or my love of adventure. Panic replaced reason and practicality. It permeated my every breath and it made my decisions.
And panic forbade me from putting myself in any situation that felt as if I was letting go of control.
But yesterday I walked by myself to a bus stop. I waited and watched. I took deep breaths, preparing to board alone and ride for just a few minutes. Down a street I’ve walked and driven and rode thousands of times. Retracing a route I took on a dark day nearly five years ago.
A route also taken that day by a dead man. And the source of much of my panic.
It’s a story I tell. And retell. One I did not write but fell into. A story I don’t want to cling to so tightly anymore. A story I’ve let define too many of my days. A story too common in the modern American vernacular.
A story about an angry young man, a bunch of guns, a college campus, terror, carnage, death...and me.
As a storyteller, I get to dictate the narrative. Sometimes I forget that. It’s easy to do. But yesterday as I followed that familiar path...the one I’ve come to associate with fear and mental vertigo...I decided to do a rewrite. Nothing fancy or epic. Just a day in the life. And a journey to take me right past this source of endless panic and transform it into something else.
There was beauty and life everywhere...
A little drama...
God rays and whimsy...
And even a self-proclaimed professional fairy...
In short, there was a brand new story just waiting for me. A tome of simplicity. A tale overflowing with joy.
"A story about an angry young man, a bunch of guns, a college campus, terror, carnage, death...and me."
My dear friend @outrayjust, your story is strong; that seeing it with your eyes.
I say this because seeing it from my experiences tends to be minuscule, where I live the fear that every day something bad is latent, your experiences in your land are fortuitous and relatively few (thank God).
I tell you this for trying to give you another vision of life itself, that we want to let ourselves be terrified by situations that for other cultures or countries are much more serious; here for something to start the transport is deplorable, the scarcity of buses is terrible for lack of spare parts and how expensive they are, when you manage to ride with the luck of being able to get into a minimum space for the exabrupta amount of people in and of people inside him almost worse, by his way of dressing, acting or looking; You start by distrusting and being alert to provoke an altercation, theft or a simple endless discussion by political points of view.
There are not many opportunities to see through your window something aesthetically beautiful, you try to transform your city into a bit of your photographs shown in this post; there is almost no hope for personal and joint emergence for the mentality of the great majority in my country.
Here almost nobody is silent, and want to be more bad than the other. We have an index of daily homicides with a percentage that if I write it, I think I would give it too frightening propaganda, and it's not my idea either; my answer here is only with the intention that between the bad you see the good thing ... that unlike other places and experiences we must continue forward, and being the best we can try to change the rest.
The art for me is the exit to this type of existing realities, with Steemit I have seen the light; I can share art, learn and be able to forget what is happening, we are in a very critical economic situation; but it has led me to be more creative and take this much more seriously; because it is a base and a feasible part to survive in this country.
Again apologize for the English, it is taken from the google translator; I try to make the language is not limiting to express myself with users as great as you!
As for the pictures and the story just great, I felt mounted on that bus, I felt the fear; the fear. What a beautiful world you have there outside those windows, what I do is imagine it and transform it in my mind.
I think it’s impossible to compare. We know what we know. And the relativity of a person’s trauma or discomfort can only be measured against their own baseline.
That being said, I am sorry you too experience unrest where you are. I’m learning to separate myself from everything outside of myself...while also feeling deeply and inseparably connected to everything. It’s the grand paradox, IMO. I can only aspire to fully grasp it in this lifetime.
Looks like either steemit lost my comment or I typed it and forgot to press "Post" either scenario is possible.
It sounds like you are busy challenging your comfort zones and long-time barriers. More power to you!
Yeah, I really am. It’s rather disorienting. And sometimes eats up my brain. But hopefully it’ll pay off in the long run. Thanks, @nikv. 😊
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Good thing you could take the bus again, I've had many stories on the bus now I'm afraid to get on them
I get it. I hope you can one day separate yourself from those stories.