Sitting in a seat facing the city night on my Hollywood train. I just spent the last half hour through the subway tunnels to put myself at Union Station, the Magnificent. If you haven't traveled around LA publicly yet, it's an endearing journey to undertake, every time. There are some of the most mentally and socially unaware or confused people in transit with you, heading wherever their same destinations will allow.
But as the doors close and the robot man speaks your next location, I can only marvel at how we're all in this together.
There are people living and feeling and struggling in this world in such ways that you couldn't imagine in the slightest until you're siting next to him or her listening to the tears or rants or giggly sourness from the source.
I've never been someone to disengage myself from humanity. There are some situations that people place themselves in that are more dangerous or unsanitary than I'd prefer to handle, but it's with the knowledge that I'm no better off, and actually too scared to take the risks that they've clearly taken. But how many people choose to neither expose themselves to nor acknowledge these people, people like you and me but with almost fuller existences because of their trouble..
Yesterday on the bus I saw a 12 year old redhead with double the street smarts that I've ever had. Tonight I met a kid who lives in Inglewood but works in Burbank and says if it weren't for the LA trains, he would never have been able to see the big possible world beyond his closer home. I meet people that live and love in clueless abandon, and then the uber rich and invincible who have a wealthy hand in everybody's souls and pocketbooks, drinking their head into oblivion because of it.
I'm here too. Somehow I fit in, maybe in my lacking. A kid from somewhere and going somewhere, but watching while I'm here. And like everybody on this train I'm not like anybody else..
I'm just glad I'm not of the niche who smokes crack for fun (like the shouting guy next to me). Thanks gods, for keeping me in the clear on that one
3 comments:
i LOVE that you take the bus in LA and that you are open to meeting alllllll kinds of people. this is how to really experience being alive.
Mikie, that's probably my favorite of your blogs, because of your humility amidst many around you in that big city. I love how you say ‘I can only marvel at how we are all in this together.’ And ‘like everybody on this train I'm not like anybody else’.. Fantastic blog Michael. I know I have told you numerous times about how my mother used to say how that Mikie is sooo full of life…Well it shows and it is soo true. Be selective in your affiliations but don’t ever change that appreciation for others no matter where you are headed.
Mikie, I tracked to your blog from your FB page that links this blog as "my religion"! I love the tone of this piece, yes the humility and the absorption (that's kind of like Buddhism, so yes, a religion...). The scope and tenor of your brief LA reflection here reminds me of "The Day of the Locust" by Nathanael West, a 1939 novel of life on the fringes of Hollywood. (This is the novel with the original Homer Simpson.) Something about people being united by their longing... Nicely said! Keep that pen in motion, m!
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