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comment by lil
lil  ·  3498 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A short poem about a journey

  I got on a chair today, swivel with wheels
  Because it was at my desk, at a window, and 
  I was tired of standing

  No paper cuts, no roundabouts, no stops
  No broken-glass promises to myself
  Excuses

  Instead, decisions, dreams, deliberations 
Decision 1: I'll contribute something today to Hubski, starting with this loveletter to flaggy's poem. Hey, _refugee_, rezzeJ adapt a line or two of flag's meditation to suit your own immediate moment. Let's make it #todayswritingprompt




rezzeJ  ·  3497 days ago  ·  link  ·  

  The journey will never end
  As it never began
  An eternal process
  Of Learning

  Buildings pale with each new
  Construction, obscuring the view
  Of what's past and what's next.
  An existence of vague yearning
user-inactivated  ·  3498 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I would like to know what hubski thinks there is to learn from a bus journey.

lil  ·  3497 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Everything and nothing. It depends on one's interest or alertness to perceptions and surroundings. One specific thing I learn every time I ride a bus or streetcar is the minutia of people's lives, their emergencies, their stresses, a lot of things I'd rather not learn; but they talk loudly into their cell phones about personal things. They swear and threaten people on their cell phones. Subways are potentially quieter.

  So I learned that sitting on a bus when it starts is
  Like being inside the stomach of 
  A growling beast
This is a nice image.

We have a bunch of new electric buses on rails. Not a lot of cities still have them the rails. Anybody else still have streetcars on rails?

veen  ·  3497 days ago  ·  link  ·  
lil  ·  3497 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Interesting locations and transit systems in that link. The downtown Toronto streetcars are not exactly what you'd call a "light rail system" but they would have a lot in common with some of them. The new streetcars pictured above do have that light rail look. Unlike downtown Calgary, where for the most part, the commuter trains are very much separated from car traffic, the tracks from the Toronto streetcars are not separated at all. (Somewhat like the San Francisco Cable Cars but not as hilly.) Consequently if you are in a hurry on a major n-s or e-w street, and you get behind a streetcar, it takes some maneuvering to get out in front. Streetcar drivers often get off the bus to yell at car drivers who pull up when their doors are still open.

It's messy and gritty and there's a lot of mixing it up, unlike the pristine bus ride that flagamuffin was on above - which I suspect was 100% metaphorical.

user-inactivated  ·  3497 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It was a metaphor yeah sure (clumsy one I think) except also I took a really beautiful bus ride from London to Oxford once so maybe it's both.

_refugee_  ·  3495 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What lil said - things about people. Also, things about oneself and one's level of patience.