Editor’s Note: Following is my fifth story from my ’07 Bus Ride — a spiritual journey.
EASY DOES IT
Eyes wide and senses alert, I scanned the terminal for someone I recognized. Seeing no one I began touring the room with my suitcase like a kid pulling his Radio Flyer, inspecting the neighborhood.
When I discovered my own gate, I sighed in relief. Tucked behind a half-wall, Gate 9 was beside the glass double doors where I had pushed into the terminal hours earlier. How did I miss this? Frowning, I mentally replayed entering, then nodded. The room was so packed then I was overwhelmed. Looking only at the back wall, I pushed through the crowd without seeing the gate right here. OK, OK. Easy does it.
Surveying the assembled band I noticed many waiting postures. Leaning against duf-fle bags, several folk had their eyes closed. A Wrangler-clad couple who narrowly made the bus in Florida exchanged words. The young man was bending solicitously over his wife as she sat sulkily on the floor leaning against a suitcase and clutching a pillow. She shook her head dully and shrugged listlessly, refusing whatever it was he offered.
Beyond them, Bigvoice sat alone, head back and eyes closed. Unfamiliar others sat with their backs to me on a wire bench, faces tilted up to David Letterman on the giant TV screen hanging from the ceiling. At my end of the bench I noticed the slightly balding head and silk shirt of the man who had sat in front of me all the way to Atlanta. I’d watched him at our dinner stop.
Different from other blue-jeaned riders, the Detroit-bound man wore designer denims sparkling with leg and pocket stencils. Stylish gold wire-rims perched on his nose in addition to the smooth green whose sleeve I had noticed on the bus. Tall and sounding educated, I heard he tell a seat partner, “I’ve been in Miami, visiting my daughter and a new grandchild.”
Behind the bench where Silk Shirt and others relaxed, a little train of suitcases stood ready in front of the gate’s door. It must be OK to leave your things here. No one looks concerned. Adding my green suitcase as caboose to the others, I sat down on the end of a second bench behind Silk Shirt and Bigvoice. I’ll keep on eye on them. They are going my way and seem to know what to do. Sitting behind Silk Shirt as I had for more than two hundred miles, I breathed more easily.
However, before long he stood up, stretched and walked over to where I sat. Smiling and lifting his eyebrows as though to say, “What else can we do?” he said, “We wait …”
Looking up at him from the end of the bench, I turned up the corners of my mouth and nodded. As he sat down next to me, I looked down at my open spiral-bound. Want-ing to keep my commitment to a silent journey, I hoped to discourage casual chat.
Taking my cue, Silk Shirt turned away from me and started a conversation with a couple seated there. Before long, an unexpected voice from the ceiling blared: “Attention Gate 9 passengers! Bus 35 scheduled to depart at 12:20 to Dalton, Knoxville, London and Cincinnati is delayed.”
I caught my breath, Oh no, a delay! Exhaling slowly, I shook my head, My friends warned me!
Frances Fritzie, Editor says, “Telling my story is healing.”
wpon9p @ May 1, 2008
Editor’s Note: Following is Chapter 4 of reflections on my ’07 Bus Ride.
EXPECTATIONS
Manifesting my Spiritual Journey
Darkness had brought quiet to even Bigvoice. Lulled by the diesel’s hum and tires’ tum-ta-tum, I dozed before we slowed and the coach’s squeaky brakes announced Atlanta.
Skies were black as we rolled into the city’s terminal. Like a back-drop for a 1950s TV Western, tall street lights washed nearby houses and buildings in shades of gray. Turning slowly into his angled slot, our driver clicked on interior lights. I perched on the seats’ edge, pushed my arms into my black vinyl rain-coat and pulled my messenger bag over one shoulder. As he announced gates for continuing passengers, I heard “Cincinnati,” reached for my pen and scribbled “Gate 9” on my left hand.
Expectantly, I gazed down the aisle as the blue-shirted driver stepped out from behind the wheel. However instead of opening the door and leading us out, he stood next to his seat and faced us, “This is the end of the line for this bus. If you continue on, you’ll pick up another. Whether you are continuing on or ending your trip here in Atlanta, may God bless you.”
For a breath, silence enveloped us. Then from the back of the bus came, “Thank you!” and “Thanks!” Like confetti, more calls of appreciation filled the air. I smiled. The mustached driver grinned and nodded several times. Without another word, he turned and stepped off the bus.
As I moved into the aisle to leave, from behind I heard Bigvoice, “I’ve never heard that… I’ve taken a lot of bus rides, but I’ve never heard that…”
Ah! A reminder I‘m on a “spiritual journey.”
I claimed my luggage from the side of the bus and rolled it up a long cement ramp toward the brightly lit terminal that crowned the three-story building. As I walked the incline, lights along the path reminded me of a picture of pre-Christian temples. At night the zigguart’s many layers, stairways and altar-top were torch-lit like candles around the edges and top of a wedding cake.
The incline zig-zagged. Finally at its top, I looked for the building’s entry. I strode past several single glass doors labeled: “Gate 8” and “Gate 9” as well as in big red letters: “Do Not Enter.” I thought of air terminal gates that opened onto stairs or a jet way and led onto an airplane and frowned, Where am I supposed get in?
I had more than an hour to fill before my next bus. Where shall I go? On previous bus rides, I’d traveled with a group and guide. On this trip I’d explore alone during the two hours before my connection to Cincinnati. Deciding, I nodded, I’ll go straight to other end of the room.
When I had extra time in airports, I’d buy coffee or a snack, then sit and read at the gate until the flight was called. A friendly aroma of hot French fries led me to a snack bar niche in the far end wall. Facing the snack bar, to my left was the area marked, “Damas/Ladies.”
Checking restroom facilities came naturally to me. Years ago when I was still in elementary school, I had a “bashful bladder.” On family car trips, I could perform only when the restroom was clean.
Once, tears ran down my face as I sat trying. Mother had pulled my one hand over into the tiny bath-room’s sink and opened the warm faucet onto my fingers, “This will relax you.” Trying to take my mind off the echoey blue tiled bath-room she began, “Once there was a little girl who lived near a waterfall. She loved to hear the water that ran so freely…”
Neither warm water nor suggestive story worked. After that, since I was unable to perform in places I considered “unclean,” Mother and Daddy dubbed me, “Bathroom Inspector.” When it was time to stop for gas and nature’s call, my resigned father would park to one side of the station’s drive and shut off the Buick. I’d push open the back door, jump out and skip ahead to “check the facilities.” If the toilet was not flushed, the sink showed dirt stains or there was no soap, I’d walk back shaking my head. Daddy’d sigh and start the car while I’d climb back in.
In Atlanta’s modern terminal, “Damas/Ladies” featured fresh-looking white tiles and even tissue toilet seats inside each stall. Sinks were clean and offered both hot water and soap. Ample hand drying came from hot air machines and paper towels. Because it lacked air freshener, I graded it B+ — well above “acceptable.”
The terminal’s large clock on the wall still showed about an hour left in my layover, so I explored the gate side of the terminal with its nine glass doors. I pulled my lug-gage past a familiar red-lit Coke machine and another, dispensing bottled water with dark blue caps. I continued around red and blue vinyl-covered wire benches filled with people. Teens in low slung jeans and other hardy -looking fellows in lettered “Falcons” or “Braves” gear leaned against the terminal’s outer walls.
Announcements sounded off and on but I perked up when I heard, “…boarding at gate 4,” because suddenly all around me people were moving. Like steel filings pulled to an Etch-A-Sketch magnet, men and women walked toward the glass-door marked “4”. Watching them line up to depart, I felt a little alarm. I have not been paying attention … Did I miss an announcement? Glancing around, I didn’t see anyone I recognized. Bigvoice was going all the way to my Grand Rapids, Michigan destination and beyond. A balding man in a green silk shirt had mentioned Detroit. Oh- oh! I had better find my fellow passengers.
wpon9p @ April 1, 2008
