When I told my parents that I was thinking about sometimes taking the bus to Calvin, it ignited a larger conversation than I thought it would.
On Thursday night, I sat on a street corner for 20 minutes, waiting for the 15 bus and looking over my shoulder about every 5 seconds.
If you had asked me two years ago to name 5 streets in Grand Rapids, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. If you had asked me last year to name 5 streets in Grand Rapids, I probably would have struggled through it. Now, the names of Plainfield, Wealthy, Lake, Cherry, Diamond, Fuller, Fulton, Fountain, College, Monroe, Ottawa, Coit, College, Lafayette, Leonard, Spencer, Page, Quincy, and Buffalo all conjure pictures in my mind.
Two weeks ago [a month ago now], I was planning on carpooling to Calvin with my mentor Nic, who turned out to be heading in about an hour later than I was expecting. “Well,” I said to my other house mentor Linnea, “I guess I’m taking the bus.” After a Google maps search and a lunch box round-up, I was off.
***
I’ve had this Google Doc open in my browser for almost two weeks with four different openings written. I never keep anything open in my browser except for the big ol’ Johnson Recipe Google Drive folder and my Calvin Google Drive. I’m a chronic tab cleanser.
All I’ve talked about for the last couple weeks, besides school and midterms and honors thesis and how much I love PN/my coworkers/baking/housemates, has been the Rapid. During our highs and lows for this Monday’s meeting, I said “I just love taking the bus. It’s so fun.” This opinion was only a little shaken when yesterday I walked 10 minutes home in a steady rain and went to tutoring where my tutee said, “You look a little wet!”
I have practical reasons why I love the bus: it is cost-efficient in the sense that I’m not using gas, time-efficient in that I can do homework while I’m riding, and eco-efficient in that the gas is being used whether I’m on the bus or not. I have some not-so-practical reasons: I like having this sense of independence that comes from riding the bus; I like doing something that makes people think twice and then question why I would bother doubling my commute when I have a car; I like experiencing what people less privileged than I (and more privileged than I, I guess) face in their day-to-day life and understanding the frustration of inconsistent timing.
It’s made me think about the kind of helps we offer in a society and how interdependent we are on each other. In my education class, we watched this video of Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor talking about disability in regular life, and Sunaura brought up this idea of helping people. For most abled people, the help we ask for is normalized. I gave the example in class of me asking my coworker Abena to grab a pencil that had rolled off the other desk of the desk. I was asking her to help me, but she didn’t balk at that request. But often when disabled people ask for help, it puts people off guard and breaks the script of normalized help.
What exactly does this have to do with my slightly headstrong decision to take the bus day in and day out? In this sense, a bus is a production of normalized help that people ask from other people—how to get from point A to point B. When that claim of help is broken, like say when the bus is 30 minutes late and it’s around 6:10 and you’re starting to wonder if you’ll make it to Calvin in time for your 7 o’clock work shift, people like, say, me, get frustrated. If I wanted to make the jump from philosophical to theological, I could talk about how me depending on the bus is kind of analogous to me depending on something out of my hands, which could mean depending on God or just depending on life to work out, but that analogy feels disingenuous. I’m not at that recognition of my level of dependence yet, and I’m not going to pretend like I am.
Right now, the bus is a place of choice for me. I find myself acting as an observer who is set apart from the other people on the bus because I don’t have to be on it. Despite touting this bus as a tool that has connected me more to the heart of Grand Rapids to anyone who will listen, I’m still sectioning myself off from it. But this distinction I fabricate is moot. I am just as dependent on the bus as the rest of the people bumping along with me as I travel from eastern Grand Rapids to northern Grand Rapids. Does this mean I’m going to talk to the people who are around me? Probably not (should I? Perhaps). Does this mean that I’m going to think of myself as being more integrated into the cycle of life that rolls around here? See myself as more of a resident than a college student, more of a transplant than a transient? Idealistic me is screaming yes and pumping her fists in every which way; cynical me is pushing up her glasses and giving idealistic the “are you done yet” teacher stare.
Recs
Article: “Internal Dialogue” by Katerina Parsons
I voted for this theme of writing only in dialogue for the post calvin because I thought it would be difficult, not because I thought someone would write something that hit me straight in the gut and poured my mind onto the page. Parsons does that in her reflections on what it means to be busy and attentive right at this second. And this one. And this one.
Website: “Future Me”
It’s a website where you can write a letter to yourself that will send in a year, 3 years, 5 years, or longer. A modern-day time capsule if you will.
On Thursday night, I sat on a street corner for 20 minutes, waiting for the 15 bus and looking over my shoulder about every 5 seconds.
If you had asked me two years ago to name 5 streets in Grand Rapids, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. If you had asked me last year to name 5 streets in Grand Rapids, I probably would have struggled through it. Now, the names of Plainfield, Wealthy, Lake, Cherry, Diamond, Fuller, Fulton, Fountain, College, Monroe, Ottawa, Coit, College, Lafayette, Leonard, Spencer, Page, Quincy, and Buffalo all conjure pictures in my mind.
Two weeks ago [a month ago now], I was planning on carpooling to Calvin with my mentor Nic, who turned out to be heading in about an hour later than I was expecting. “Well,” I said to my other house mentor Linnea, “I guess I’m taking the bus.” After a Google maps search and a lunch box round-up, I was off.
***
I’ve had this Google Doc open in my browser for almost two weeks with four different openings written. I never keep anything open in my browser except for the big ol’ Johnson Recipe Google Drive folder and my Calvin Google Drive. I’m a chronic tab cleanser.
All I’ve talked about for the last couple weeks, besides school and midterms and honors thesis and how much I love PN/my coworkers/baking/housemates, has been the Rapid. During our highs and lows for this Monday’s meeting, I said “I just love taking the bus. It’s so fun.” This opinion was only a little shaken when yesterday I walked 10 minutes home in a steady rain and went to tutoring where my tutee said, “You look a little wet!”
I have practical reasons why I love the bus: it is cost-efficient in the sense that I’m not using gas, time-efficient in that I can do homework while I’m riding, and eco-efficient in that the gas is being used whether I’m on the bus or not. I have some not-so-practical reasons: I like having this sense of independence that comes from riding the bus; I like doing something that makes people think twice and then question why I would bother doubling my commute when I have a car; I like experiencing what people less privileged than I (and more privileged than I, I guess) face in their day-to-day life and understanding the frustration of inconsistent timing.
It’s made me think about the kind of helps we offer in a society and how interdependent we are on each other. In my education class, we watched this video of Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor talking about disability in regular life, and Sunaura brought up this idea of helping people. For most abled people, the help we ask for is normalized. I gave the example in class of me asking my coworker Abena to grab a pencil that had rolled off the other desk of the desk. I was asking her to help me, but she didn’t balk at that request. But often when disabled people ask for help, it puts people off guard and breaks the script of normalized help.
What exactly does this have to do with my slightly headstrong decision to take the bus day in and day out? In this sense, a bus is a production of normalized help that people ask from other people—how to get from point A to point B. When that claim of help is broken, like say when the bus is 30 minutes late and it’s around 6:10 and you’re starting to wonder if you’ll make it to Calvin in time for your 7 o’clock work shift, people like, say, me, get frustrated. If I wanted to make the jump from philosophical to theological, I could talk about how me depending on the bus is kind of analogous to me depending on something out of my hands, which could mean depending on God or just depending on life to work out, but that analogy feels disingenuous. I’m not at that recognition of my level of dependence yet, and I’m not going to pretend like I am.
Right now, the bus is a place of choice for me. I find myself acting as an observer who is set apart from the other people on the bus because I don’t have to be on it. Despite touting this bus as a tool that has connected me more to the heart of Grand Rapids to anyone who will listen, I’m still sectioning myself off from it. But this distinction I fabricate is moot. I am just as dependent on the bus as the rest of the people bumping along with me as I travel from eastern Grand Rapids to northern Grand Rapids. Does this mean I’m going to talk to the people who are around me? Probably not (should I? Perhaps). Does this mean that I’m going to think of myself as being more integrated into the cycle of life that rolls around here? See myself as more of a resident than a college student, more of a transplant than a transient? Idealistic me is screaming yes and pumping her fists in every which way; cynical me is pushing up her glasses and giving idealistic the “are you done yet” teacher stare.
Recs
Article: “Internal Dialogue” by Katerina Parsons
I voted for this theme of writing only in dialogue for the post calvin because I thought it would be difficult, not because I thought someone would write something that hit me straight in the gut and poured my mind onto the page. Parsons does that in her reflections on what it means to be busy and attentive right at this second. And this one. And this one.
Website: “Future Me”
It’s a website where you can write a letter to yourself that will send in a year, 3 years, 5 years, or longer. A modern-day time capsule if you will.