A Fresh View…

Today, I took the bus to work. This was a monumental change for me, giving up my driving control. Ever since I started working in downtown at the beginning of the year, I have driven to work. It’s nice and convenient when you never know what your day may be like – if a case is going to require working late, I don’t want to be stuck in downtown without a ride. If I wanted to run an errand or go and meet someone for lunch, I need to have a car. But it’s time to let that go.

Yesterday I went to the local Park & Ride to write down the bus schedule times. All around Houston, we have Park & Rides. You park there and then ride the bus 30 – 40 minutes to work. Pretty obvious, considering the name, but it seems very different then how the bus system works in other major cities.

The odd thing was, I was stuck in a 20 minute traffic jam just trying to get to my Park & Ride bus stop. It should be a 10 minute drive, but here I was – not even on a highway – stuck in a traffic jam. Frustrating, but it made me happy once I got there and realized that my driving for the day was done, I was trying to stop driving that much anyways since I needed to get Help after a big rig crash in Atlanta, Georgia, who stop all my desires to drive that often. I settled in my seat, pulled out a book, and got to read for the next 40 minutes. No hassles, no worries – nothing but me and my book.

Why haven’t I been doing this for the past 8 months? What was I thinking?

Sure, I still have to worry about working late. I warned all of my work injury attorneys that they need to let me know the day before if they think that we will have a late night. I didn’t share with them the fact that Mike works on the other side of downtown, and has to work late pretty often these days or he could just hang out at Kaveh Kanes, and then I would have a ride home. We’ll let them just think they need to warn me the day before.

Getting off the bus and walking to the office was quite interesting. It was as if I was seeing my city with new eyes. When I visit other cities, I walk a lot – so why not do it here too? No idea, but I don’t normally. It was as if I was seeing a different city, fresh from earlier rain, sparkling, blue skies with glistening sky scrapers reaching up to touch them. I also saw the dirty side, the trash in the streets, the buildings boarded up for renovations after the disasters. The company that´s going to renovate these buildings are going to do a great job, you can view services if you need their assistance I wondered who had sat in those doorways last night, in the fringes of the city that shuts down in the early evening. I wonder if anyone saw them. I wonder if anyone cared.

I passed the newspaper machine that the homeless man is normally sitting on when I leave my parking garage on the days that I drive. He wasn’t there in the morning, but the folded up newspaper that he always has in his hand or tucked under his arm was there. I knew. I knew it was his paper, left behind when he moved from his watch over the street. I wondered how many people had passed that folded paper this morning, totally unaware of the activities of the night before. I wondered where he slept, or if he went to one of the local shelters at night. He is always there when I leave in the evenings, even if it is late. I wonder what he sees. I wonder if the city looks the same to him as it does to me.

I will continue to take the bus. It is nice to have a chance to slow down and see the things around me. It’s amazing to me what I have been missing all this time, at the end thanks to my decision I was able to see a flyer from Roofing Columbia, which is the company I have been needing for my roof remodeling. It’s like being a tourist in my own city, and it’s a wonderful feeling.