It was first with confusion, and then with great disappointment that I was informed by a passenger as to why there were squads of riot police all around us on Capitol Hill. White supremacy? Here? Why am I being told of flyers describing in lurid detail what these guys hope to do to all gays, blacks and otherwise who cross their path?

There's a memo that hasn't gone out, I thought at the time. The memo is, we're in Seattle, in the 21st century, the fastest growing, most educated city in the United States. I misunderstood my passenger at first. Surely she meant a group protesting white supremacists, not skinheads themselves. There couldn't possibly be something that antiquated in a city as progressive, as forward-thinking, as European as ours. We're supposed to be bickering over lattes about rent control and transit infrastructure, not cowering from the hateful spectre of ignorance. Small wonder these guys don't live in the greater Metro area; you can't be that nescient growing up in a dense urban environment living amongst the multitudes. You don't have neo-nazi rallies in Times Square or Sunset Boulevard. It doesn't work like that.

My mind wandered to the recent May Day protests, which took place on these same streets. At the time, the crowd surrounded our bus and we inside got an intimate eyeful of the rabid hordes swimming past. What I remember most vividly were the police. Behind their billy clubs and tear gas pellets I could see their faces.

They were absolutely terrified.

That's a hell of a job, I thought, back in the present, driving past a squadron of cops of all colors. If any one of these guys is killed tonight by skinheads, it will be the same magnitude of tragedy as the racially profiled killings we've sadly become accustomed to. The loss of any person, for the sake of ideology.... When the Dalai Lama visited Seattle in 2008, he said war, as a form of problem solving, was out of date. Hate is similarly antiquated as a way of conceptualizing others. It ignores the bare fact of our commonalities. At the end of the day, we all want about the same for ourselves and our loved ones. 

"So what was that protest all about?" asked a middle-aged street man with stringy hair. He and I were helping strap in a wheelchair-bound passenger on my last run; just us three strangers on the bus at this late hour. The chaos had died away.
"It was some white-supremacy thing."
"A what?"
"Yeah, not that many guys though. There was more, a whole bunch more, way more anti-white-supremacy people. Which is good."
"Depends who you talk to," he said.
Oh dear, I thought. "I guess," I said.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm no white supremacist. But I do have blonde hair,"
"That's fine!"
"-and blue eyes,"
"Oh, that's fine!"
"-and I was raised Irish and German,"
"That's perfectly, that's great!"
"I can't help that." Which is the whole thing in a nutshell. Nor can anyone of any color. 
"Exactly."
"But sometimes in prison you gotta stick by who has the power. And in prison often it's those guys." You could hear the experience talking in his voice, and also the guilt.
"Survival."
"Exactly," he said.
"Yeah, there was a lot of talk about it, but I guess it turned out to be just  a couple dozen of them, compared to like six hundred anti-hate people who showed up."
"That's good."
"Says a good thing about our city."
"Yeah. That's not us. I think we care too much about each other. No space for hate out here."
"I agree."

I had similar conversations throughout the night. Two friends shared they had participated in the rally because they wanted to address this now, and "don't want it to escalate." Others were incredulous that such a thing would be happening in the first place. There was a pleasing unity to these sentiments, a lack of ambiguity which hearkened back to the days of Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation. We were united against a common front. Today's world is generally too complex for such black-and-white delineations, but the villainy of white supremacy borders on the cartoonish. What were we going to do, consider the grey areas on this? There are no grey areas. For once in our lives, a highly undemocratic, totally intolerant attitude towards a group of people actually felt appropriate. Aggression in the name of hate has no place here or anywhere.

--
​
Paris has for me infused events like this with a sense of urgency. I was going to post the above the day after the event, only to learn in doing some followup research that there was no white supremacist element in Seattle that night. 

I was mulling this over when my good friend Celia materialized as if by magic on my bus, as she often does. We have a tendency to read each other's minds. She was the one who brought it up. 
"Hey. Did you hear about the protest on Capitol HIll last night?"
"The white-supremacy thing, yeah, I was driving through there when it was happening."
"Oh wow."
"Actually I was going to, I wrote this big thing to put on the blog about it, but then I found out, did you know this, I read that there actually were no skinheads on the Hill last night?"
"Yeah." 
"It was just the anti-hate people. Which is I mean it's good. Obviously. But I wrote my thing thinking that there were skinheads everywhere, so my writeup was way more intense than it needed to be!"
"Oh, you were like,"
"Yeah, oh my gosh the world's ending type of thing. What did you, I wanna know what you thought of it." She's very passionate on subjects like these, and well-informed.
"I thought it was... I thought it was good that the different groups were coming together to, as one voice,"
"A united front," I said. I love that phrase.
"Yeah. Being really strong against the white supremacy. But. It could have been this great opportunity to show that the different groups can work together and make bigger change happen. But then when they started breaking windows, or tagging the Walgreens, I thought it kind got out of hand."
"Started to defeat its own purpose. It's like, why are the anti-hate people breaking things?"
"Yeah! It didn't make no sense!"
"I thought so too. I agree. Because I thought yeah, it's good that there was this strong response against it, that the groups were able to quickly organize and make a strong statement, instead of the whole laid-back laissez-faire Seattle we're not gonna do anything about it thing,"
"Yeah!"
"That part of it was great, but when they started vandalizing stuff, like you say. I was going to write about how awesome they were, coming together and representing a peaceful but strong voice, but now I can't!" Not when they were vandalizing Walgreens (um, not a white supremacist entity) or tagging KIRO7 vans as "antisemitic" (not accurate, guys). 

Which doesn't mean the mobilization wasn't impressive. It was so significant that the opposition didn't even show; which is to say, it achieved its purpose. At the end of the day, the hypothetical memo I mention above apparently did go out. We are in Seattle, and Seattle has room for all sorts of attitudes... except one.

--

I dearly wish I could end this writeup there, and share it as a success story of sorts. But the truth is we're not living in Brokaw's world anymore. Things are more complicated than that. 

The events above took place on the night of the 6th, Sunday. At 3pm of the 5th, sixteen-year old Hamza Warsame, a Running Start student at Seattle Central College, Somali and Muslim, was killed. His body was found at a building on Summit Avenue he'd never been to before, and was last seen an hour before his death by friends, on his way to study. Those who knew him state emphatically that suicide is absurd as an explanation. He was last seen with another student, who happened to be white. 

Maybe I need to retract my compliment above of Seattle as a European city. Why did no one besides Hamza's kith call for a response and investigation? Why was there no immediate message to the public regarding this incident made by Seattle Central, nor Seattle Police, nor even a single news outlet? I think we can guess the sort of furor this would cause in the publications and streets of Paris and any other number of cities. 

There is such a thing as a "fair-weather protester." They get in line for the easy stuff, the stuff that looks good, is easy to understand. My friend summed up this side of mainstream Seattle activist culture with the line, "[it's as if they're thinking yes,] I'll show up to fuck up a Hammerskins demo, but I might not… put my body on the line in cases of extreme covert racism, workplace discrimination, bigoted crimes, the construction of a new youth jail." Those require more informed and nuanced stances. They require contextual knowledge and an understanding of multiple sides of the issues and their ramifications. You have to sit around reading books and news articles or have long level-headed conversations with people. That's legwork. Not the same thing as running out the door to get those nazis– though both approaches have their merits.

Who showed up for Hamza on Sunday? Who mentioned him, who mourned him while the sound and fury took place, while cameras flashed and Walgreens' were tagged, in the very neighborhood he died, not more than a day after?

No one, that's who.

I include myself here, as I was as uninformed as anyone else. 

Statement from Hamza's family.
Justice4Hamza event details.

--

UPDATE: Multiple rallies have now taken place regarding Hamza, including an enormous one on the night of the 10th, and an SPD investigation is underway. That's more like the Seattle I meet, greet, and fare well to a thousand times over each night. It is a good city to be part of. Forget all my rambling. This entire post could be boiled into one sentence:

The wheels of understanding and good works may turn slowly, but oh, how inexorably! 

"Alright everyone, this is a 7, we're gonna take the 7 tonight all the way to Rainier Beach, all the way down Rainier. This bus goes as far south as Henderson, number 7 to Henderson, welcome aboard."

Kids pile on at Genessee. "Iss my guy," one of them says. This group is livelier in spirit than the usual teenage crowd; these boys don't have the self-imposed somber. What's most curious to me about kids loving my schtick is that in those moments they're completely on board with something relatively square– I'm not a figure that stands in rebellion to the Big Man, or who oozes hipness or exclusionary cool. I'm just the friendly bus driver, driving around the ghetto being absurdly nice and forgiving. I don't understand it, but I'm grateful. I know these kids won't give me any trouble. They're loud back there, laughing amongst themselves, but then again, so am I.

I reflect on this as I call out the next stop: "let's go to Alaska Street next, Alaska, by the Library, Post Office Services for the Blind; we got the community center on the left, and cultural center, that's on the right side."

At Graham Street a man works his way up to the front. Shortish, bald, oversized black hoodie. I can't quite see his face yet in the dark.
"How's it goin'!"
"I just had to come up here and tell you, you are the, you're the coolest bus driver!"
"Thank you!"
"It reminds me the first time when I first came to Seattle, all the drivers was like you."

I yell thanks to the kids in the back stepping out now. "Have a good one!"

"Hang on," I say, responding to his thought. "They all used to be like this?"
"Yeah, twenty-five years ago, I first came here. They'd greet everyone, say hey, call out everything. I thought it was part o' th' job description. I'm not gettin' off yet." We pull away from the zone.
"Oh that sounds beautiful! Take me back!"
"Dude, no." Not the past, says his voice. The present. "You are just motha-fuckin' killin' it, man! Ah be sittin' back there smiiiilin–" he makes the word elastic, his enthusiasm turning the word to a sound as yet unspoken ever before. I wish I could show you his face, a collection of years beaming as only children know how. "I dunno if you coul' see, but I be sittin' there hearin' you say, 'comin up on the left,' sheeyit. I be smilin' thinkin' this guy is cool as a mothafucka!"

Imagine his downward pump of a fist of excitement, as in, touchdown! I can't help laughing– in embarrassment, in joy, reveling in the anachronistic conflation of his profane purity. Sometimes I wonder how much we could pick up with only the cadence and tone of people's voices. I bet we'd get a lot. It hardly matters what language he's speaking; I know exactly what he means. The baldness of his honest praise humbles me. That he's so exhilarated by simple goodness. It's not his complimenting me that's exciting. It's the fact that we're in the truthful bubble, where we don't have to be hip. 

"Man, thank you! I can't tell you how much that moves me, man!"
"Back there the kids was like he's the fuckin' coolest, an' I'm like hell yeah he is!"
"No way. That makes my night! The kids?"
"I's like, I got to tell him."
"That makes my night!"
"Mine too, man, this bus ride turned it into a good day."
"And you know, thank you for steppin' all the way up here to say this! To get the feedback, it's kinda rare,"
"It would notta been a good night if I didn't come up here and tell you."
"I grew up riding the bus a lot, I still ride the bus a lot, and so I try to be, the driver that I would want the driver to be if I was riding,"
"Yeah yeah. Well you DOIN' it man, you are just fuckin' doin' it like a motherfucker! I can't believe! I jus' felt so good sittin' back there!"
"There's this Martin Luther King quote,* where he's like,"
"Yeah,"
"He's sayin', if it falls to you to be a street cleaner, or toilet cleaner something, let you be the best,"
"Fuckin,"
"Most amazing toilet bowl cleaner there is, do it like, like it's a masterpiece painting,"
"Hail yeah,"
"Be the best you can be kinda thing, don't matter what it is."
"Das exactly what choo doin', dude, and you should be proud. My name is Tiger."
"My name is Nathan. It's good to meet you."
"I'ma be around. I do stand-up comedy around here,"
"Oh, tight!"
"And iss like you doin', iss all about touchin' people with the positive. I gotta say, this one uh the most amazing things I've witnessed,"
"Dude no. It's a honor to hear you say that!"
"Keep doin' it man. 'Cause for all us folks out here, it means the world. That's some shit from the heart."
"Thank you. Thank you!"
"I see you again!"
"Oh yeah! I'm a be right here!"

Later on that evening, another gent has similar thoughts. Roger is an operator, riding my bus home. I see him get up to leave, preparing to leave through the middle doors, but he too feels compelled to walk up to me.

"You're such a PRO, Nathan. You are just a pro at this. You've got this voice thing down."
"What? Thank you–"
"It's like a radio voice, just exactly that silky, warm, like it's in anticipation of something. You know what you sound like is those golf announcers. 'And he goes for the putt.' "
"No way!"
"All the women back there are smiling."
"Naaawwww."
"I been watchin' 'em. You got em charmed." 
"Naaawwooo way. I don't believe you! Roger thank you for saying– it's an honor to hear you say this, man. Thank you. 'Cause I have no idea what it sounds like! I never get to ride my own bus!"
"You've got it down, Nathan. Keep doin' it."

I know the feeling of joy fulfilling my being, overflowing such that I can't help but lay it on anything or anyone around me. It's a treat to see the same bubbling up in others. I'm thankful for every minute.

--

*I've grotesquely mangled the quote. Give me some rope- I was splitting the lanes at Myrtle to take the curve! Here is Dr. King's dramatically more eloquent wording:
​
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Residual fallout from my Paris situation continues to make itself known on the bus. Yet another passenger informed me that her bus also erupted into cheers when the announcement went out that I was alive– I now learn it was not just a text message to drivers, but an announcement inside the buses themselves. I find this humbling beyond belief. They never say stuff like that! I won't go into the details of her recollections or what the operator of her bus said about me– I can only blush so much– but I'll simply say thank you, thank you, thank you to all the generous souls out there. How else can one address such attention? Even more mind-blowing was an older Asian man at the bottom of Rainier Valley, nice fellow but by no means a fluent English speaker, who last night said,

"Long time I no see you! Where you go?"
"I was on vacation, but now I am back!"
"Paris?"
"YES! How did you know I was in Paris???"
"I look on internet!"

I was incredulous. Way out here, underneath a streetlamp at 12am, on the wrong side of town. I tell people that the impact they have always extends further than they're aware, but I forget the mantra also applies to me. It's all a bit much to handle, though.

Equally invigorating is to simply drive around picking people up who have no idea what I've just been through, to see faces happy and angry, thankful, spoiled, excited, tired… no better way to get out of one's own head.

In such a manner I was talking to passenger Alex about all manner of non-Paris concerns. I don't even remember what we were going on about. Something about youth shelters, and then his theory of how there's two types of bus drivers, those with power and control issues who therefore find difficulty serving others and those who think the act of serving others is a worthy thi–

"That guy's so awesome." I just had to interrupt. 
"Really?"
"Not to interrupt. But yeah, the guy getting off with the bicycle. He has pretty severe case of OCD,"
"Oh,"
"And when he gets on he…."

​I began to relate our encounter. Thirty minutes ago I knew nothing of the man's condition. He was simply an extremely standoffish fellow at Rainier and Holden with an intimidating look. Dressed in black, big tonight, formidable looking guy in layered clothing, the impression of mud and grime and dark recesses, multiple pockets, unzipped coats, concealed items, his eyes averted beneath the shroud of his bandanna and skull cap. He struggled with putting his bike on the bus rack, and when I went outside to assist he sprinted about twenty feet away and stood quivering, watching until I retreated back inside the bus; then raced thirty feet away to a hiding place and withdrew several stuffed, tattered garbage bags before diving into the bus, making a beeline for the deserted rear seats. 

He stood back there, not sitting, glancing around furtively, trying to keep a six-foot radius between himself and any other passenger– difficult in the limited space. Subsequently he flew back up to the front, ignoring any greeting of mine, and placed a dollar bill on the farebox, withdrew it, placed it on the farebox again, withdrew it, repeat, then the dollar in the bill slot. The same thing again with the second dollar– three feints, then in; and now the coins; he accepts the transfer before hurtling to the rear again.

It's the least populated part of the bus, but others are coming aboard now, and three teens go back there and crowd him. His moving away from them strikes them as comical, confusing, and then offensive. They ask what his problem is, what he doesn't like about them, the whole bit. It's odd, seeing scrawny teenagers ganging up on a guy who looks like a mashup of Jean Valjean and Bill Sikes. Magpies haranguing a Golden eagle. He is silent, a caged animal looking for his own corner. They lose interest after a time. They're not so bad.

At Seneca, he catapults himself out the rear doors and sprints past the front to his bicycle on the rack. In the moment of his passing the open front door, we make eye contact for the first time. 

His eyes are brown and kind, with the hesitant shyness you find in the lonely. The purpose of his glance is to alert me to his stepping on front of the bus to remove the bicycle; I give him the upward nod in return, acknowledgment and respect in one twitch of a muscle. After he's retrieved his bike, he looks at me again, safe now on the other side of the glass windshield. He waves. There's a tentative friendliness there, a hopeful twinkle peeking out beneath the grime and heavy gear. 

His expression is uncannily like a high school memory of mine, when a new quiet friend across the cafeteria waved at me, haltingly, hoping I was indeed smiling at him and not someone right behind.

Simple actions can take courage.

"There he is! How ya doin'?"
"Great!" he says. "And you?"

​He's a recurring rider, this gent, popping up with a random regularity at different points along Rainier. I'd say he's fifty, a fresh fifty with a genial wisecrack up his sleeve every time. He always says "bingo." I wouldn't mind that as an identifying characteristic. He's dressed in Dockers, a turtleneck, and blouson; one of the many refined pillars of the African-American community out here.

Tonight, the truth was I felt burdened and distended. I'd misunderstood some deadlines regarding medical paperwork and just learned I had a tight timeline for fulfilling them, with the additional complication of not knowing if I had the necessary documentation or if I'd be able to even acquire such due to time-sensitive components and hazy evidence. So.

I answer his query with a sighing "I'm alright." He knows me enough to know this is utterly out of character. Friends joke with me, saying if I reply to "how are you" with a mere "okay," that means my day's been terrible!
"Just alright?"
"Yeah, I'm getting over this, uh. I had Dengue fever."*
"You had what?"
"Dengue fever. A mild version of it I think, but still." Am I going to turn into one of those people who talks about all their problems with strangers?
"When?"
"Oh, I just got back from Mexico, Mexico and Cuba. I got family down there. But I think I got hit by a bunch of mosquitoes."
"What's Dengue fever like?" He hollers. He's sitting halfway down the length of the bus, but the route's just begun; we're alone for now.
"Mostly combination of fever and flu-like symptoms, headache muscle and joint pain, there's a skin rash part of it too, but I didn't get that. I'm way better now. I'm thankful I got to go down there, but now I'm tryna sort out the sick days at work, 'cause I was gone for a while."
"What is there to sort out though? You were sick!"
"True, but it's the whole getting the verification, getting certain paperwork in by a certain time, signatures… you know how it puts the pressure on, you know?"
"Yeah."
"So it has me stressin'. I know worrying won't help, but I tend to worry until it's all sorted out. You know?"
"Yeah. I'm a therapist."
I chuckled. Naturally! "Oh, well you know all about this! I din't mean to make you work during your off hours!"
"Oh no!"
This is all way too much about me. I try turning it around. "How are you?"
"Oh fine! Bingo!"
"What a great response! I wish everyone said bingo!"

People are starting to board now. Personal conversation has had its day in the sun, and now it's time for connecting with the folks at large. After a small crowd wafts in at Henderson, a familiar face pauses outside the doors. His round head is emphasized by his baldness, glistening dark brown;  if you've got the head shape to pull off fashionable alopecia, you may as well go for it. He's shorter but well-built, thirty, baggy sagging jeans coordinated with an appropriately oversized dark sweatshirt.

In a theatrical voice he declares, "bus driver by day… photographer by afternoon!"
"You know all about me! You saw the sign!"
"I saw the sign, yeah! You know how I saw it?"

This is what red lights are made for. He doesn't need the bus, but he really wants to tell me this. Still standing on the sidewalk, he continues with, "I heard this lady talkin', 'he's so nice, he's so nice,' and I thought she be talkin' about the driver of the bus that was right there. But no! She was lookin' at the picture uh you, man!"
"What? That's an honor! Thanks for telling me!" 

After we leave the curb, I say, "aw, that's so nice," half to myself and half to the man in the chat seat. My favorite bus trips are when things keep rolling such that I'm breathlessly chatting from one person to the next for the entire ride. To him directly I ask, "how's it goin' for you?" 

He's another distinguished gent, slightly heavy in the way that announces presence with dignity, where you think this guy must be president of something. Wire-rimmed glasses framed by salt-and-pepper dreadlocks down past the shoulders, a knotted wooden cane, dressed in a calf-length black wool felt coat, spotless. You want this guy to officiate your wedding, or at least bless your adopted child. 

"Great," he replies. "So, bus driver by night… or is it the other way around?"
"No, definitely bus driver by night! Too dark to take pictures!"**
"Ha! So, what is it?"
"Oh, they're doin' this ad campaign trying to hire drivers, with the idea of you can be a bus driver and do your other stuff too. Tryin' t'let people know, it doesn't have to be just, you come in drive the bus, then go home drink beer watch television!"
"Ha!"
"You know?"
"Yeah! So what kinda photography you like to do?"
"As long as I'm shooting on film, I'm happy." I always say that part, in answer to the oft-asked question. How much further I elaborate depends on the person's curiosity. Tonight I say, "but enough about me talkin' about myself. How about you? I like your walking stick!"
"Oh! Thank you!"
"It has personality!"

As it turns out he's genuinely interested in photography. Now we're discussing his friend Melvin, a fellow enthusiast with his own photography show opening just this weekend.
"You might know him, Melvin. His brother's a bus driver,"
"Really," I say. I know a lot of drivers. But this angle rarely works: there's 2,700 of us.
"Yeah, Glen."
"Oh! I know a Glen. Mr. G-Money! Kinda shorter,"
"Yeah,"
"Great big smile?"
"Yeah!"
"Think he has a coupla kids, right?"
"Yeah!"
"Oh, he's a great guy!" 

Why am I so unreasonably happy we didn't mention his race in describing what he looked like? Something about this elates me on a level I can't describe. Would we be somewhere slightly different as a society, if we only used character traits to describe people?

"He is. Yeah, his brother is my friend Melvin."
"This is excellent! Okay, tell me again where this show is?"

We talk about Belltown, trying to pinpoint which intersection. "First and uh, I think First and, or is it maybe Second and...."
"One of those!"
"Yeah, Battery and...."
"That's prime real estate over there for galleries," I say. A photograph or two can cover a month of my rent. We discuss Melvin's photography. Our friend isn't entirely sure of the process. "Something with lamination," he says. "What about you, you got any shows comin' up?"
"I got nothin' now, but I'm goin' to Paris tomorrow!"
"What?! Wow! For how long?"
"Just over two weeks. I'm happy for the opportunity but I'll be happy to get back on this number 7 in no time! If I make it back with arms and legs, hearing and vision, I'm thankful!"

Little did I know, in that moment. But nevermind. You wouldn't doom the present by telling it of its future, would you?

"Well, enjoy yourself! And." He leaned in, as he stood to get off: "Eat. A lot." That's the voice of someone who's knows what duck confit tastes like.
"I will! Hopefully you'll recognize me when I get back!"
"Ha!"

I was raised with the notion that we generate our own happiness from within ourselves, such that we might not be dependent on outside forces, unreliable and negative as they can be, influencing our own well-being. I abide by this concept because I find it self-evident. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't take assistance from those around me. Like the song says, we get by with a little help. It's in exactly the times when we feel like withdrawing that we benefit most from reaching out. It's counterintuitive. As with jealousy, which always works the opposite of the way you want it to, it can help to resist the impulse. Closing down won't make things better.

"If you're feeling stressed," I once told a class of new full-timers, "try to get out of your headspace a little. Ask somebody how their day is. Compliment someone's hat. Announce the stops yourself for a trip or two, instead of the machine (or on every trip, as I do!)." We have more sides to ourselves than whatever's bothering us right now, and flexing those other muscles will only help. I'm so glad these three men minded me toward matters besides sick day balances and doctor signatures. 

They didn't know they were helping me stand up again, reminding me there's more. It can be healing to talk about Belltown galleries and advertisements and what people's friends' brothers look like. We receive in return what we put out, but planting the seed of positivity for doing so during a challenging time is a delicate act, and the help of others is much appreciated. Together we brought it back, these three unrelated musketeers and I. Pulled me back to my better self.

Thanks, guys.

--

*Or possibly Traveller's Dysentery. There were a couple thousand cases of the former in the part of Mexico I visited when I was there, but my symptoms were in between the two maladies.
**The ad now says "bus driver by day, photographer by afternoon," as you can see in the image below. The original brochure read, "bus driver by night, photographer by day," which I much prefer, mainly because it's accurate! But the campaign is for part-time operators, who can't work at night. I was part-time for seven years, which is why I'm featured. 

I just used a bathroom without having to pay for it. Clearly I'm no longer in Europe!

Back to our regularly scheduled program: 

Everyone else has left. Just a few souls remain, scattered throughout the big articulated coach as we continue toward up to Prentice Street, the neighborhood loop which concludes the 7 route in Rainier Beach. This middle-aged gentleman creeps up front, seemingly hesitant as to whether or not to engage with me until I brightly ask him how he's doing. He happily responds in the affirmative and adds,

"Man. Every time I been on your bus I feel like a tourist."
"I hope tha's a good thing!"
"It is. I remember twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago I come here. I'm from (unintelligible), Texas, where there's no public transportation."
"Okay, a small town,"
"And ah remember comin' here the first time, list'nin' to the black bus driver tellin' us all, on your right we have Othello Street, on our left we have Seattle Center, an' I felt so loved, so at home, in this new place,"
"That sound's beautiful! I want it to feel welcoming. Make the folks feel comfortable."
"Oh yeah. Absolutely. Think I'll stop at KFC."
"KFC sounds good."
"Yeah, I'll just cross the street."

Sometimes a line like that is our last.

"I'm goin' to tha store," he says.
"Takin' care o' business!"
"Das all I been doin'! I been on my feet all day long." Awl. "I din' even get to watch the game!"
"Look at you, stayin' busy on a Sunday!"
"Yeah! But I be there for the next game!"

And so he went, still visible behind me in the blind-spot mirror, a tiny figure crossing the street unharmed, making it hour by hour through another ordinary day.

My body is tired, but more than that, my soul is exhausted from travelling. It's been a whirlwind, this year: New Years Day started off with me on a plane to Milan, for three weeks in Italy; then a quick trip out to Philadelphia (a good friend) and Washington, DC (a killer art show); numerous trips down to LA, for a variety of reasons filling out the highs and the very lows of the emotional spectrum; Mexico (my Aunt!) and Cuba, which had it's own element of challenge (read/images below); and now, Paris in the Autumn, for two weeks, one week right before the attacks and the other immediately following. Perhaps you've read the post just below detailing some of my experiences out there.

Not that I'm complaining. I count myself unimaginably fortunate, not simply to have had the opportunity to take all these wonderful journeys, but to have made it back alive from each of them. I've always felt it a welcome surprise to return in one piece from an international expedition, while simultaneously finding the thought a bit silly; after all, driving a bus is more dangerous than going on vacation, and driving a car is more dangerous than driving a bus. But such logic stands feebly in light of my recent experiences. 

​[An expanded version of this post is now available in my new book, under the heading, "Both Ways."]

I'm excited to share a few specific bus stories with you over the next week with some more substance than the brief encounter outlined above. Paris pictures and thoughts will need time to process (that's both mental processing and film developing I'm talking about!). For now, please understand as I wade through several hundred unread emails and notifications and calls, each of which I count myself lucky to have received, let alone be able to receive. Thank you again.

And now, off to my first night-shift on the 7 since I got back! Ah yes, that's the ticket…. 

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*Please don't be cowed into not travelling by an overenthusiastic newsmedia. Says Mark Twain, from Innocents Abroad: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

They closed the Eiffel Tower.

Everything else here in Paris is closed too, but when the most widely recognized manmade structure and most visited monument in the entire world is completely shut down for three days, well, that's when you know this event and the lives it destroyed aren't just another blip in the news cycle.

I see tourists wandering about in a confused daze, with nowhere to go. Locals congregate in groups familiar and new, filling up the still-open cafes (nothing could ever close down the cafes in Paris!).

But they are talking differently now.

The tones are hushed, raw, somber, torn. Laughter has been replaced with silence. These are grown men now, with red eyes, ugly from crying but who cares, tears running down their stubble as they point at blood on the ground. You hear the question in every heaving sigh: when did the world stop making sense?

The date will be remembered as its own noun. The names of the concert hall, the restaurants, and stadium will forever shift in meaning, something sinister about them now, sounds which carry the weight of lost years.

Although 9/11 took place in two locations, its focus on the Towers have led us to conceive of it as primarily taking place in one part of New York. Friday Night, however, happened all over Paris. It feels different, here on the ground. The multiplicity of attacks makes it feel like everyone was close, was there, is hurting, knew somebody.

I was four blocks away, at a laundromat, oblivious. I folded my clothes and took the short way home (the other route I sometimes take would've put me three blocks away). For some reason I felt like turning in early that night. Now at my hostel, also four blocks away, I sat on the floor and made pleasant conversation with my hostel-mate, a recent graduate from Taijung on a solo traveling adventure. She and I talked of careers, possibilities, pleasing others, customs, travel.

Four blocks away in exactly the same moments, nineteen people were murdered in two adjacent restaurants while probably having similar conversations. An unknown further number were injured or hospitalized.

What staggers me into bafflement is that the universe has space for these two completely different worlds to be happening simultaneously, in almost exactly the same place. I hardly know what to think. I'm reminded of Joyce's description of the sky as a "vast, indifferent dome," always there, forever silent.

I learned of the events early the following morning when the night-shift receptionist wouldn't allow me outside, as per the instructions of the television. There was no functioning bus or Metro currently, and impromptu refugee encampments had been set up around the city for the millions who couldn't make it home. After an hour I convinced the night guard to let me outside, and I went immediately to the intersection of Rue Bichat and Rue Alibert.

Initial reports state that only those at Le Petit Cambodge, a restaurant, were affected; that is incorrect. Le Carillon, the bar across the street, is just as rent with bullet holes and shattered glass. I arrived before police or news did. Sawdust had been laid down over the square to absorb the blood. There was punctured concrete from bullet strafing throughout the entire intersection, and splintered bicycles and motorcycles from the same. Blood pooled on the entry steps to Le Carillon, some of it gristly with the remains of flesh, elsewhere leaking into the crevices and gutters before anyone could bring flowers. It was still wet when I got there.

I was part of a very small group of strangers, and as light came to the morning so did more and more people, with their silences, roses, candles, cameras and consternation. We staggered around each other, stupid and raw. No matter what we did, or where we looked, at the evidence of violent death, at the spaces between each other, up to the unblinking sky... what was the name of this thing that had happened here, just a few hours ago?

Death disorients us because it is enormous. We're so good at focusing on what is small in life. This has significant and obvious dangers (not being thankful, namely), but I wonder if this tendency carries a silver lining. For it is only because of our amazing ability to forget how near death always is that we get anything done in life.

We get up in the morning and throw ourselves into matters of varying importance. We have some unique sense which lets us forget about imminent mortality as we continue the Search, the Great Search for happiness and meaning, the quest in which we do the dumbest and the smartest of things, feeling our way in the dark towards the answers.

Because the successes we find along the way are worth it, whether we live another hour, or for a hundred years.

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Also: I was woken up this morning by none other than CNN, calling on behalf of my friends and family, asking if I was alive and unharmed. I am. Thank you ever so much for such an outpouring of concern. It means a tremendous deal. My heart goes out to- well, everyone, but especially those were happy before Friday Night, and cannot be now.

Information on the events and some of what we've been going through here. 

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Thoughts on the same, with hindsight: Paris, One Year Later: A Personal Perspective

Photographs of mine in the hours and days afterward: Death in Paris