Stick shift and bad back do not make good bedfellows. But I’m the kind of person who likes to sit in front of the computer until the last minute and then dashes out the door. When I am forced to abandon my “third leg” because of back spasms I have to reevaluate my priorities.
The world has always been what it is. Only when I enter it at a different portal do I notice new things like fresh air, the fog, the wind, sunshine, the moon and the rhythm of my heart. As a poet I write about these elements often enough. But they are through the imagination and not so much the body. Taking the bus I find an entire community of its own as we rub shoulders and smell each other’s odor and listen to each other’s conversation. A long walk navigating between people and animals, observing the glorious old cinemas that have deteriorated into garages and sundry stores on Mission Street, I find my slowing metabolism speeds up. It is all good. #11, as we call legs, is the bus I’m taking these days. Unlike Muni, I can depend on them.
