None too good at lucid thought in the mornings on the way to work. There’s a reason why they put free papers on the buses in the mornings. It gives us something to hide behind.
I’m usually not even awake enough for that, more about staring out the window and hoping to wake up after the mid morning coffee, at least. But every now and then, I see a few sights from the bus that wake me up a little: if only to try to work out what I saw.
Large man approaches a local nursery. He is carrying a small girl on his shoulder, and her rather pink rucksack in one hand. As the bus pulls past, I realise that he has a tabard on the back which says “Security”. Is this a metaphor for our society’s fear of harm to children, or just a man dropping off his daughter at nursery before going to work?
Passing a group of commuters, one reading a paper while standing at the bus stop, I realise that he appears not just to be reading it but sniffing it…Is he hoping to impart the information more quickly? Are there any lingering solvents he’s trying to take in?
Another man stands at a bus stop, with a small child in a sling on his front. The child gets gradually larger as the weeks go by. I never see him interact with the child. The child never looks up at him either. But the child does seem peaceful. Perhaps they are just allowed to be as vacant as I am in the mornings.
Another lady boards the bus in a smart outfit, all vintage dress and flowing shawl. She carries what seems to be a wheeled suitcase, and at first I think she is a tourist. Then she keeps turning up with the same suitcase, but different outfits each day.
She still wears the shawl on a day which is tipping it down. I still wonder if she is in fact a tourist, as opposed to a resident, who will either wear a wind and rainproof jacket all year round (like me) or a T shirt all year round (like some of the people who wait at my morning bus stop).
When I was a waitress full time, for part of my gap year before university, I worked in a cafe which had a lot of regulars. As members of staff, we knew to expect them. Some of them even gained nicknames in time (whether they knew them was another matter).
As a usually daily commuter, at times I feel similar to this, spotting the regulars as well as the ‘irregulars’, in terms of the unusual. Certainly I don’t think I dress in an exciting enough way to stand out to other people watchers. But maybe I’m a regular to someone else, caught in their own dream of morning on the move.