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Short one this time– I post new material on the 1st of every month. Check back went rent is due!

I've been working later than usual, at an inconvenience to myself (no transit runs to my home in those wee hours), because it's so deeply satisfying. Something happens after 23h00, cruising down Rainier, nodding and waving goodnight to my regulars. Why do the stakes feel lower, the world smaller and more your own, with more space and time to be? 

In the midst of the evening 7's fifteen-minute frequency, there's a 30-minute gap in the southbound service at about 22h30. It's a scheduling error, and it's been there for years. I've given up complaining about it. There couldn't be a worse time for a gap in nighttime service: the 22h00 hour contains a "rush hour echo" as the swing shift workers make their way home. My 23h00 trip is filled with a double load not of sleepers, but commuters.

I knew about that issue for a long time before realizing this past year that I'd picked a piece nearly every night containing that very trip. The busiest consistent nighttime trip on the 7. I sighed when I discovered this, but now I feel a strange relish doing it. You feel important, carrying two trips worth of people who actually need to be somewhere. These guys want to go home. For some reason Metro assigns a small bus on the run every night, so it's packed; but we make it work. While the institutions fail us, we can tend to each other. I greet them with a smile, with respect and love. By now they know me. No one complains. We're doing what we can, happy to be here.

It is hard, yes, but good. Why choose easy? When did easier become better? Are not the harder thing, and the right thing, usually the same? What is living, if not embracing struggle?