I always pull up early when starting an inbound trip at Aurora Village. There's something nice about sitting there with the doors open, in prep mode while people get on and situate themselves. I can recall a time on the 5 at Shoreline Community College when it was magical, or at least I thought it was magical, as I hung around at the front while students intermittently wandered on and relaxed after taxing their brains in biochemistry class. It conjoured up the sensation of a long trip, not unlike boarding a plane and getting settled in with your book or coffee. 

Since then I do it whenever its appropriate, typically on a route that starts at a transit center. Spring is on its way, not quite here yet, and the days are lighter. I'm scribbling on a scrap of paper on my knee, making thoughts concrete. It's around 8am, gray with light fog, and here's a young black man, dressed like he just applied for Exeter, running breathlessly up to my bus. Behind fashionably thick-frame black glasses he asks, "how long before I leave?" 
"Seven minutes," I respond. He asks if it's okay that he leaves his backpack onboard while he smokes a cigarette. Certainly. 

Then, unprompted, he talks about how running in the wind "hurts my eyes, dogg, gets all in my eyes," with an expression of severe pain. I say "yeah, me too. It's like being on a bicycle, where after a while, your ears become sensitive from all that wind blasting in." 

He looks at me with incredible surprise- "YEAH!"- as though we'd uncovered one of life's great secrets. 
"What are you writing," he asks me. 
Now, in truth, what I'm writing is the blog post below, 'Appearances.' I dont say that though. The meta-connotations would be too much- like breaking the fourth wall in film. 
"Oh, I'm just workin out some stuff in my head, you know, figuring out my thoughts." 
He explodes with a "Yes, I do that too!" We riff on the benefits of clearing the mind.

"Ah write about mah feelins," he says loudly and boldly, without embarrassment. Something about his sincerity makes me forget to laugh. 

The fascination amongst youth culture with being "cool-" that is, with being aloof, askance, steeped in irony, experience and cyncism- bores me immensely. Coolness is defined by jazz historian Ted Gioia as "putting up a guard." Honest, open communication takes a backseat to a posturing and a preoccupation with trends and surfaces.* It's the opposite of letting down your guard, which is a prerequisite to any sort of meaningful relationship.

This kid is not being cool. He's being genuine. He wears his words on his sleeve, not in the least worried if he sounds silly as he says, "if I'm feelin' angry, I write about it. If I'm feelin' sad, I sit down and write about it. I get the pencil out and jus' get it all down on the paper."
'Cause then your thoughts are concrete,"
"Exactly, man." Excited. "Inside your head it's all swirling around, and it's hard to think. But you get the pen out, and it makes everything better. 'Cause sometimes you can be confused, but when you write about it, you look at it real, and it all makes sense, you've taken like this big jumble and unraveled into one long thing, and you can look at it and understand it. You wanna know what you're feeling, can't have all that runnin' around inside your head. You go crazy sometimes. I don't like that. Tha's why I write. Doesn't matter what I'm feelin,' what's goin' on, I write about it. I write about everything. I could be writing about that guy crossin' the street. I got so many journals stacked up-" 

He's standing awkwardly at the front, not sitting in the chat seat, which is available. I'm held so rapt by his monologue that I don't suggest that he sit in the chat seat, for fear of losing his conversation. We're driving by now, passing 185th. A man with big glasses and turquoise shorts asks about downtown, and I suggest the 301. 

I ask my standing friend, "What kinda stuff you been writing about? What do you wanna do?"
"I wanna go to Edmonds. But that's jus' part of the plan. I'm gonna be a film producer. I'm gonna make my own movies. I know a businessman in Chicago, he gave me his card. I know two businessmen. They're gonna teach me about notes. That's like stocks, keepin' track of the money. I wanna be a film producer with my own company, where I act in the movie, I direct the movie, I produce the movie, I do music for the movie, it a be a one man show but I gotta be trained. First I gotta learn about stocks and mutual funds, then I have enough to open my own restaurant, use that money to do that, then after the restaurant, I have enough money to make a small film, then after that movie blow up, I bankroll another film on top a that film using the profits-"
"Reinvesting." 
"Hell yeah," he agrees. "Step by step. Can't get right into film production now, I gotta, it's gotta be a process." 
I want to reign this in a little. "Tell me about the restaurant. What kind you gonna open?"
He's still standing, right behind me, behind the yellow line, filled with enthusiasm. 

"Fried chicken," he blurts out, after consideration. Then he relents and reconsiders. "No, man. Ribs. I'm gonna open a ribs- barbecue! You know, a real barbecue joint. Everybody gonna come." A blight on his smiling face as he realizes: "they a lot of vegetarians nowadays though." The guy looks almost depressed. I try to encourage him, reminding him that "tons of people like ribs. Always gonna be people eating ribs," I say in a consoling voice. "Everybody likes barbecue."

But he's not discouraged: "Maybe I can get them to give up vegetarian though. Like, they'll come in- exactly, everybody like barbecue. They gon' come in, it gonna be so good, my barbecue gonna be so good they'll try it and maybe start eating ribs again. Maybe give up veg. I'm gonna go sit down. What's your name its a plesaure talking."

I couldn't help but wonder if this was his ordinary way of talking- flitting from topic to topic with unbridled honesty and bursting naivete; was his an attitude that will hold, or will he look different in twenty years? I like when what little cynicism I have is proven wrong. Let's hope he matures into a place that works. 

At 155th, we have an older Caucasian man with a cane moving with dexterity across the street. Jaywalking on Aurora is a life-or-death proposition that I've seen end badly. "Don't hurt yourself out here, man. Be careful. That kinda stuff scares me." 

"Thanks," he says, noticing and registering my appearance. "Howyoudoingtoday?" Sometimes you can feel someone making a conscious decision to engage.
"I'm great, how 'bout your self?"
"Huimdoowinpittyguh (I'm doing pretty good)-" he says, in a tone of complete surprise, as though he hadn't realized this until I'd asked him.
"Ahainnevaseenyoubeefa," he slurs out. He's intelligible, but only just barely. I'm able to discern that he's speaking English, and from someone else's perspective, we must look quite the pair- one man making a series of garbled transmissions, and the other responding excitedly in normal English. We chat about my take on the route, and his childhood in Cherry Heights (Cherry Hill). It's like speaking a secret language. You can hardly understand him, but- you can. I resist the urge to speak in his voice.
"MahCaseWorker'sFemale."
"Is that so?"
"Yuh."
"She lookin' out for ya?"
"OYeah. Shetellmeputthemsocksonmyfeet."
"Sounds like she knows what's up!"

The fog is beginnning to burn off, and sunlight wafts onto his face. There is light everywhere. I want to faint at how beautiful it is. Warm, incandescent tones make new shapes on people's faces, and shadows grow where they were none before. At 135th I look down the open expanse, between the tawdry landscape of K-Mart and Krispy Kreme, and the beauty of the light floors me. 

"Look at that light," I can't help but say.  The fog gives depth to the space, and a stillness filled with possibility. Albertson's never looked so good. I'm never sure if non-artists are into this kind of thing, but this oldster is. "Yeauissbeeayophu." 
"Aenissgehhenwauhmatoo," he adds through bleary eyes. "Nawssoko enimo." 
"You said it. I'll take every degree I can get!"

"That's a good-lookin' crockpot," I say to lady carrying a good-looking crockpot at 130th.

Somewhere further down the road, perhaps at 100th, Will.i.am, the rapper, or at least his doppelganger, gets on. "Uh oh, whaaattt? Not the lil' kid again," he laughs. 
"They can't get rid a me!"
"Hot diggity dog. You guys best be checkin' for this boy's ID," he announces to the rest of the bus.
The trick is not to assert yourself over non-issues. Flow with the people, not against them, a driver once told me when I was new. Thus:

"Oh, you know I got my learners permit!"
"Learner's permit," he laughs.
"Yeah, you know they're desparate to hire people. Recruiting straight outta junior high school." 
"Straight outta junior high school!" Repeating it for effect.
"I should be at home doin' chores! Gettin' my homework done!"

He's cracking up at the seams, laughing. We amiably continue. I see faces in the mirror, quiet but smiling. Somehow it comes out that I'm from LA. Sometimes people can tell by the way I find myself speaking sometimes. It happens without my realizing it. Shades of an earlier life, creeping out.

"You from LA?" he asks.
"I am!"
"What part?"
"South gate," I reply.
"That's the hood, man."
"It is."
"Yeah, that's the hood. South Gate. SG."
We laugh. Nobody calls it SG. It's a parody of sorts of "CP," the designation for the neighboring area, Compton.
"Yeah, there's a driver friend a mine, Jerome, he also from down there."
"You know Jerome!" I say, becoming animated. I love Jerome. He has the character and patience to pick the 358 five days a week, and still be happy. I relieve him three days a week, and he's one of the best. 
"Yeah! Jerome's awesome."
"Man, South Gate. Thats where Cypress Hill from, arent they?
"I believe so."
"They closed down that Maplewood Police department!"
"So where you from?
"LA too! course I am, how you think I know about the Maplewood Police?"
"Yeah, that's true." 
"I was there, and I was up in San Gabriel for a while. The Other SG."
"'The Other SG,' oh, that's great. I ain' never it called that before!" We're both rolling around in the aisles- metaphorically, of course.

"What hospital you born in?" he asks.
"I forget the name, it was in downtown LA. It was a Korean name, Korean hospital, probably why I forget the name. My mom's Korean." 
"Really?" Surprised. "You Korean?"
Slurring guy says, "you look English!"
"What?" I say, turning around. "I look English?" I haven't heard that one. I've heard Hawaiian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, but- English?!
"Yeahthedarkhairyeah," he explains. This explanation is news to me. How had I not known that the English are identifiable by their hair color?
"You dont look Korean," Will.i.am says. 
"Shoot! I gotta work on that!"

"In downtown LA, man. 'Cause I used ta live off a Vermont Ave,"
"Yeah, I used to take the old 204 up and down Vermont-"
"And thats in Koreatown, a course, and I was wonderin' if maybe it was over there."
"Yeah, I used to hang around over there. I'd go over to the art museum at Wilshire and Fairfax..." You find solidarity talking about mundane things with someone from a common origin. There's no other reason to get excited about talking bus service on Vermont Avenue, but we sure are.

"Yeah, by the tar pits."
"Yeah, the tar pits. And the mammoth statues. 'Miracle Mile.'" 
"Yeah, Miracle Mile." 
"Though I ain't never seen no miracles happen there!"
"Hey, don't give up the faith! One day one a them woolly mammoths is gonna come alive-"
"And that sabre tooth tiger!"
"Yeah, so I speak Korean but I'm not fluent."
"Koombaya heenghow," he says in an Asian voice. 
"Oh, I see you speak it fluent too!"
 Faces laughing.

"Man, everyone wants to go to work today," I say, noticing the bus filling up. 
"Yeah, its Friday, can't nobody call in sick. You gotta go to work."
"Thats right. You gotta have some nerve to do that. These are the good people, they didn't play hooky at all, even though its nice out!"
"Alright man, I wanna see a driver's license nex' week," he says as he leaves. We're at 45th now.
"I'm a do my best!"

At this point a Caucasian man in nondescript west-coast office wear comes up from the back to join me in the chat seat. He says nothing. 
"How's your morning goin'?"
"Quite well."
"Off to a good start."
"Talk about a beautiful day."
"Yeah, usually I bike in, but I had a flat tire."
"Minor detail!"

I ask how far of a ride his commute normally is.
"I come in from around 145th."
"You bike in from 145th?? Where are you going?"
"I work in South Lake Union."
"Wow. Wow. That's a ride. Especially going home. Those hills!"
We talk about hills, and then I ask, "what kind of work do you do, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Research."
"Excellent. Staying productive. In what field?"
"Tuberculosis."
"A worthy cause. Do you like it?"
"Yeah," he answers half-heartedly. "Sometimes you run into issues with funding. We're government funded-"
"Ooohh."
"Yeah."
"Do you ever run into issues where the source of funding is determinate on the types of results you're being asked to produce?"
"That's exactly it, it's coming from a source that wants something specific, and we have to tailor to their needs,"
"They might have an agenda,"
"Precisely,"
"And the nature and trajectory of the research gets influenced by that?"

This is a major issue in multiple fields of scientific research, and we discuss it further. What's invigorating about this is the complete and instantaneous switch in gears from animatedly engaging with Will.i.am on subjects like undead woolly mammoths and riffing on being underage, to animatedly engaging with this learned gentleman about pressing dilemmas in academia. I'm equally fascinated by the undercurrents of both, and it's a thrill to move so quickly from one to the other. 

I have much respect for educated people who meet others on an equal plane, and feel no need to foist their learnedness on them; implicit in this approach is the acknowledgement that no matter how smart one is, one can always discover more, from anyone, as long as one is receptive. As Da Vinci said, "Every man is my teacher, in that I may learn from him." I aspire for this mental framework. It's why I get so much out of not just Researching Tuberculosis Man, but also Slur and Will.i.am, and even Ah Write About Mah Feelins Guy. It doesn't matter if he's naive or younger. He's had life experiences I have not had. I can get something out of the interaction.

I wish Researching Tuberculosis Man a pleasant day at work, and then Real Change Willy comes over for a high-five at Denny Way. It feels good to straddle both worlds. I can feel the commuters thinking, who the heck is this guy driving this bus?

A homeless woman with a walker and warm pink hat (more on her here and here) gets off from her trip to THS. I ask her if she finished her Harlan Coben book- that's what she had last time. "Yeah, finally. Took me forever," she sighs. "I didn't like it at all." She has a new novel under her arm now, one of those sci-fi apocalyptic types. I didn't used to know homeless people read Harlan Coben. Now I do.

At Wall a group of excited high-school age girls get on, headed for the Amtrak. They have their luggage ready for a long trip. It's clear buses are not their usual mode of transport; the dynamic changes a little when bus newbies are onboard. You and your bus, for them, are representing all of Metro. I enjoy ushering them into a friendly 358 atmoshphere. 

The crockpot lady from 130th, who is Caucasian, gets out at Columbia, and says thanks in Korean- "khamsahamnida!"
I get excited- "Chumuneyo!"
"Neh!"
"Ahnyunghekahseyo!"
"Ahnyunghekehseyo!" 

Mid-morning light streams into the bus, making everything new. I ask the girls where they're going. They're headed for Los Angeles, and it's going to take 35 hours! I don't know why I'm so excited, but I am. They're from Canada. We talk about the ticket prices, and whether they've been before. The noises are animated, our voices popping with a verve that comes from who knows where. At the end of the line I sigh with pleasure. It's been a good trip.

My dear friends, I find myself in a position where I need to take a short hiatus from the blog. I'm preparing for a solo art show in June, and my commitment to have this show be the best show possible has resulted in its demanding all of my available time. 

You may have noticed the declining frequency of posts here over the last two weeks, for which I apologize; I put a lot of thought, and by extension, time, into these posts, and were I to continue them while in the midst of organizing my show the quality of both entities would suffer. 

Having said that, if you enjoy my blog, I strongly recommend the show, which will be not just photography, but also all the other forms of art I partake in, including bus-related writings and other material. The Nathan Vass Retrospective, as it were. It'll be at the Blindfold Gallery on Capitol HIll and is slated for an opening reception on the evening of June 13th. Of course, I'll keep you updated as more details become firm.

I have every intention of staying busy and continuing to share the stories that I love telling so much. They just keep flooding in, and there is a massive backlog as well. I encourage you to subscribe to the blog if you haven't already, so you don't miss out on new stories when they eventually start piling in again. 

It gives me great joy to know that there are so many of you who enjoy them as well. In that spirit, I will leave you with four more posts before hightailing it. Two are about my last day on the 358, and the other two detail my first days back on the wire, on the 3/4. Don't hesitate to come find me on the bus! Think of excuses to go to the Central District!

Hello all, 
This is merely an indicate letting you know of an updated set of photos in the Photography Section; also, my current show in Redmond will close at the end of the month. Enjoy!

I likely won't have any film-related posts here until this holiday season, so I offer the following if you're interested: a detailed writeup on my take on the nominations for this year. I hope you enjoy. Check back soon for a massive post (or possibly posts) about my last day on the 358!

Oscar Predictions #1, by Nathan Vass

I don't always wait for runners. Most of the routes I drive run too frequently to justify waiting, but people still run- they'll run for you even if the next bus is literally stopped right behind you. This is an ongoing mystery to me.

Sometimes, though, I'll be feeling especially generous, and I want to wait. I've certainly ran for my share of buses. Today it's at the first stop on the inbound 41, outside Fred Meyer at 130th. Often a waited-for runner will thank me for my patience, or smile in gratitude as they catch their breath; it's a nice exchange. Today, however, is different.

This woman, overweight and middle-aged with a mullet straight out of a time capsule, doesn't offer a word of acknowledgement- even as I say hello. The temptation to say something snarky is overwhelming, but there's no need. She's my fellow human, not my daughter. I focus on other people as the route goes along. 

We'll return to her in a moment. Later that same day, a middle-aged man, perhaps 55, steps onboard my 358. I've seen him before, and he always enjoys riding my bus. As is the norm, he's dressed in unassuming homeless garb- oversized beige winter jacket with layers underneath, a knit cap of indeterminate dark color; faded trousers and an overall weathered appearance. When you spend enough of your life battered by the elements, your skin ages in a way that's unmistakable. Today he steps on and I'm mildly surprised- it's Valentine's Day, and he has a bouquet of tulips.

"Those are nice lookin' flowers," I say.
"Yeah, thought I'd get a couple for the wife," he replies as I notice a ring on the appropriate finger.
"That's 'cause you're a gentleman!"
He smiles. Beneath his layers I spy the collar of a dress shirt. This guy's not homeless at all. I always knew he was a gentleman, but had no idea he was a family man. You just really never know.

Toward the end of the same trip, a young African-American man in a hoodie and dark jeans comes up to the front and sits down next to me. At 46th I'd greeted him with a decidedly uncool "how are you?" and he had still responded in kind. Now we're at 198th, looking at a man in the roadway with a sign that reads, "FOOD MONEY."

"Does he want food or money," Hoodie says. We ponder for a moment and begin swapping stories. 
 He goes first: "Man, I was standing in line at McDonalds,"
"Yeah,"
"And this guy comes up to me askin' for three dollars. He be sayin' he don't got no money, he gotta get the bus back don't have no fare, so could he please have three dollars then he be on his way. I said no, but my girl next to me says 'hey babe, come on now, give the guy three dollars.' So I give him three dollars. And then, he go right to the next person in line behind me, asks him for three dollars! Says the same stuff about bus fare and everything!"
"That's crazy!"
"Yeah."
"That's ridiculous. 'Cause you worked for that money."
"Exactly. He din't need that money at all."
"Especially in broad daylight like that, him askin' the next person while you still standing there. Shameless."
"I know, right?" We're not complaining, just marveling. I'm reminded of an incident that happened when I was a child:
"Okay, this one time, somebody ask me for some change, and I'm givin' this lady this big handful of change, and check this out. She takes it and picks out all the pennies and throws 'em on the ground."
"For real? Man that shit's messed up. Pennies not good enough for the penniless..."

His tone is interesting. He sounds not as if he's criticizing the "other," but rather just that he's disappointed in his fellow people. I can identify with that.
"Exactly," I say. "It was unbelievable. Or this other time, guy comes up to me,"
"Yeah,"
"Tells me this big long story about he's stranded out here and he needs to get on a bus back to San Francisco. A greyhound bus back to Frisco."
"Okay."
"Explains to me this complex set a circumstances, he don't got no money, isn't anyone he can call,"
"Yeah,"
"He just really needs this ticket to go get on the greyhound bus. I said okay, and I gave him the money. Now. Six months later, the same dude comes up to me, and tells me the exact same story!"
"Nooo waayyy."
"Word for word! I couldn't believe it."
"No way! What'd joo say?"
"I said no, man. No way."
"'I remember you.'"
"Exactly. He probably tells that story to so many people he just forgot."
He looks at me for a moment and then says, "Ey, you probably been asked this a lot today, but-"
"-How old am I?"

We laugh. Our conversation moves on to bus driving as a job. He's 20. The conversation swirled and eddied with its own specific hum, building into the space something that wasn't there before. You felt whole, comfortable with yourself, like you were part of something that used to be ineffable. As I mentioned in an earlier post, diversity brings out commonality.

"'Cause I heard they're hiring, or something."
"Yeah, maybe. As long as you love people," I say with emphatic hand gestures, "it's the best job ever."
 He affirms, but I stress it again: "I mean, you got to LOVE the people."
 Sometimes people just nod when I say that, but he gets the enormity of it, shifting in his seat as he mentally puts himself in the position.
"Everybody," he says. You can hear the gears turning as he ponders the discipline. He's into the idea.
"Yeah, man. If you can do that, it's just, it's the best thing ever. It makes it fun."

What made the interaction special was the relaxed sensation that neither of us felt like we had to be anything other than ourselves, despite the difference in culture, dress, or attitude. There I was, in my tucked-in button-up and bus slacks, and there he was, with his Quiksilver beanie and "so fresh" jeans, meeting at a mutual level we could both reach. The idiosyncrasies didn't matter. I don't know what compelled him to come up from the back to talk; but when young people reach out to strangers, or realize they don't have to conform to a type- particularly an attitudinal type- it gladdens my heart. We shake hands as he leaves. There are a lot of variants of clasps and grasps and pounds in the handshakes of various groups; this one's made up on the spot, a bizarre hybrid of loping gangsta and decisive real estate broker. It works.

To return to the 41, earlier the same day, with Silent Mullet Lady:

She rings the bell at 123rd, and as I pull into the zone, I briefly consider not saying a word to her. For me this is unthinkable. I always say something. However, she didn't say a word ot me, or thank me for waiting, after all; but that's just a fleeting thought. Of course I'm gonna say something kind. People need acknowledgement.

When I say "thank you" to exiting passengers, I'm thanking them for quite a number of things. For not urinating on the seats, for not beating up passengers, or assaulting me, for riding the bus in the first place and thereby keeping me employed, for paying the fare or part of the fare, for acknowledging me by asking for a free ride... the list goes on. There's a lot for me to be thankful for, and this can function as a useful reminder for myself. 

So, by choice and by instinct: "Thank you."
"Thank you," she replies. "And thanks for waiting."
No Way! She didn't have to say that at all- but she did! How wonderful! I'm elated, more at having my preconception of an unthankful person being proved wrong than anything else. Sometimes it's the little things.

Two and a half hours later, as I do seemingly endless rounds on the 41, she gets on again. This time things are a bit different: she has about twenty small children in tow. It's a field trip! She's one of a few chaperones, and she's in her element, laughing and helping, knowing just how to speak to each of her overexcited young charges. Professional. 

I think to myself, Here she is. What a far cry from my intital impression of her, which was based mostly on her silence and her Reagan-era mullet. 

Appearances. Often they don't count for too much.

As we count down to the last couple of days of the shakeup, I wanted to offer some thoughts on the part of town I've spent so much time in this winter, and which I will be sad to leave~

I've sided with my friends in the past when we deplored the visual aesthetic of Aurora. Was the an uglier strip of road in the city? This is what we asked ourselves, tearing down the six-lane expanse at okay, something rather above the speed limit, peering out from our cars in derision.

That was then. We were youngsters, and we thought we knew what we were talking about. We didn't. There are things- worlds, lives, and loves- that you'll never know if you only ever drive through a place. Get out of the car. Feel that wind blowing your hair. Know the feeling of the walking in the cold, on this day, these sidewalks. Birds, noise, exhaust, voices. 

Let some dirt get under your fingernails.

I have come to love the iconography of Aurora Avenue. Here is a realm that stands outside of time. There is the egregious concrete expanse, nigh uncrossable, a rotating pulse of endless, ongoing life, rubber tires uniting to make a sound we can't reduce to a name. It's the sound of a thousand stories, elated, pathetic, tragic, energized. Normal. There are the decaying sidewalks and the stretches without, cement plates buckling under the onset of nature. 

There's the veritable battery of motels and hotels, room after sordid room, and who's counting. Years of secrets lining the fading walls; how many times  have these drapes opened and closed? Standing in an empty bedroom, staring nowhere. Sometimes you can hear an echo in the hum of a fluorescent lamp.

The landscape of Aurora Avenue holds firm against the leveling advances of technology. This could be the eighties. Or 1978, Mid-October. Tire rotation, junk removal, appliance demolition, the dollar store; block after block of chain-link fences and used car lots. The Elephant at 8800. Aurora Donuts; Dang's Hair Salon. St. Vincent de Paul- once a word for a man, now immortalized into another life. These are the edifices of our time. Lowes. Korea Times. Dilapidated tattoo parlors and auto wrecking offices that seem deserted. Men slink around in the darkened corners. (Refer here for background on Aurora's culture; elsewhere, a celebratory writeup on the corridor; and, if I dare to toot my own horn, search my name to find an article on me on the same site).

The receding concrete vastness rolls away endlessly, populated at all hours of the day. The detox and rehab facilities pepper the landscape. I remember a prostitute at 115th, turning down a free bus ride even though there was snow on the ground, choosing to look for work at 5am; another sorts through her plastic bag of condoms. Her mother is sitting next to her. 

Craggy eyes and broken faces peering at me in the dark. A man gets on with a full-size camping tent, big enough for four people, like it wasn't any big deal. Just goin' up the street. Another fellow, middle-aged white homeless man, his face utterly destroyed, beaten to a pulp. The skin has turned black, and the cuts on the eyebrows are drying. He's lost his backpack with his his HIV paperwork and his last $100. Tough-looking character, but his voice is human. I can't tell if he's crying. 

I do my best, staying with him, staying present. Another man and his friend thank me because I let him ride yesterday, though he was 60 cents short. Here's the methadone crowd, wide awake already, as I advertise 165th and 170th- "these next two stops both pretty good for THS," I tell them on the mic. "Good day today. Maybe see you on the way back!" 

The reaches quiver with life out here. You have to talk to people. Connections mean something, however faint; the street denizens engage each other even if they're initially strangers. Sometimes they tear each other apart; other times they bond in ways they never knew- "small world," you hear someone say, with that familiar tone of welcome incredulity. What commuters there are often keep to themselves, perhaps out of fear, or perhaps knowing that this just isn't their element. 

I help a couple with their six suitcases and duffel bags. "I should work at an airport," I quip, as they toss bags to me, which I heave onto the sidewalk. Laurie's sitting across from me, explaining about vomiting and Pepsi. Her day's better now than it was earlier. Sometimes her blood pressure's too low. "It says I'm dead, is what it says," she intones with listless eyes. "I don't believe that for a second," I smile back. 

Here's a man with his own swivel chair, unidentifiable wooden cartons, and dog. Gent with a jacket that may have been yellow in another life, the putrid stench of urine clinging to him and his five bags. He's tall, and quiet; think Clint Eastwood if Rawhide had never panned out. 

Often the thought comes up again- I wouldn't want to be spending time with any other group of people right now. 

How can I want to be here, not as some mere passing anthropological diversion, but day after day, after day? What is this feeling that grows richer with the passing of time? What could I possibly be so enamored with? I mean, Aurora Avenue?! What?

To be here is to know the human organism, unadorned. 

I want to feel the truth of life, the tactile earth of the ordinary. These are not extreme lives, but people like myself. A veneer that's present elsewhere has been stripped away, and my head feels clear down on the ground. Diversity paradoxically reminds us of how similar we all are. Commonalities show themselves. There is a confirmation of sorts taking place- yes, we are human. I find this deeply comforting. This is all on top of the fact that I can help someone, or perhaps alter the state of people's minds, even for a moment- something about that allows all this to work together; I haven't quite parsed that out just yet.

We often forget the savagely indifferent balance of nature. You are confronted with it out here. Classrooms teach children that there is an answer to every question. Only on the outside do we discover how little quantifiable facts count for in life. A line is brought to mind, from Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris: "In man's endless search for truth, he finds only knowledge." 

To be slapped in the face with reality, to live in realms of truth regardless of positive and negative- this is an affirmation of life that I benefit from. Despite all the things you might know or have seen, you can still look out at the world with a sense of wonder. There is something about physical reality that is inherently satisfying to me. Amazingly, it always has a new shade to reveal, if you're open to it.

A spry, tough older guy, John, told me one night- "You are The Beast, man. You're changing what Aurora Avenue is, just by being out here. Dude. I've watched you. Everything you say and act to these people... You are THE BEAST!" 
To which I replied, "No, you're the beast, man-" 
"No no no, I'm not the friggin' beast, dude. That doesn't make any sense. YOU'RE the Beast. Don't be modest, man..."
I smiled.