Today, I started riding public transportation again. Amherst has a great bus system provided by the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA). When we first moved to the Pioneer Valley, I lived for two years in Pelham — one of the “hill towns” that surround the valley. During those two years, I had to purchase an expensive parking sticker and drive to work. As a newcomer, the only parking stickers I could get were a long way from my office. I initially selected the closest lot I could find but when I asked my colleague he said, “Do you want to die? That’s on top of Orchard Hill. In the winter, you will slip, fall, and die trying to get down the hill.” So, I picked a lot that was essentially as far as you could get from my office and still be on campus.
When we purchased our house, it was about the same distance as that parking lot had been. But, even better, there was a bus stop at the corner of our property. It took about 15 minutes to walk to my office but, if I timed it just right, I could take the bus and get from my front door to my office door in under three minutes. It was so efficient, it made it kind of hard to walk. If I did walk, two or three buses would go past. Eventually, when I did want to walk for some reason, I started walking a slightly longer route that took me along a different street where I didn’t have to have it rubbed in my face that I could have ridden the bus.
During the pandemic, I pretty much quit riding the bus. Even before the pandemic, I had started my Professional Improvement Fellowship and was going to the Makerspace, instead of my office. The Makerspace was even closer than my office and not on a bus route, so I just walked to that. And once the pandemic started, I wasn’t going to my office anyway. And then I was hospitalized and needed to avoid respiratory infections, so I started working remotely.
Looking back, I also realize now that, even before I was hospitalized, I was already showing symptom of chronic lung disease. It became harder and harder to walk any distance. It was a very gradual process that I explained to myself by saying I was “out of shape” or that I’d gained some weight. In fact, my lungs just weren’t working very well and I was constantly suffering from hypoxia. Doctors would ask me if I suffered from “shortness of breath” but I literally didn’t understand what that meant. Since I had been suffering from shortness of breath for so long, it just seemed like my natural state. A respiratory therapist I worked with in the hospital said, “Wow. That must have been really hard.” I felt seen.
Although I didn’t need to go to an office anymore, I did take daily trips to visit and check on my son. This was particularly true after his hospitalization this winter. Since then, I’ve visited often twice a day to support him and take care of his boxer dog. While the students are in town, the buses tend to be very crowded through campus, so I decided to drive. And I didn’t think much of these trips until gas prices began to spike after our mad king’s unconstitutional war against Iran. Today, with the students gone for the summer, I decided to mask up and start taking the bus again.
It was fun to refamiliarize myself with the practices of riding the bus. The bus tracker website, that you can use to see when buses will arrive at the stop. The various bus routes and their vagaries. The unwritten conventions, like the fact that you don’t have to signal for stops at some places, like the middle of campus or Cowles Lane (my destination). And that you do have to signal for the stop nearest my house, but that you should wait to signal until you get past the previous intersection. (Over the quarter century I rode the bus, I learned that if you signaled too soon, the bus driver would occasionally forget and blow right through the stop. I saw that happen a handful of times when people signaled too soon, but never if you waited to signal.)
I was also reminded of the slower, more relaxed, pace of life the bus imposes. When you drive, you can stay busy right up until you leave. Then you’re busy driving. Then you arrive right at your destination. With the bus, you have a short walk to the bus stop, a brief wait until the bus arrives, a relaxing ride, and then you arrive at a short remove from your destination and have to walk a few steps to get there. It’s relaxing — and it fits well with my new-found freedom as a retired person.
Next fall, when the students come back, I might start driving again. But, for now, I’m having fun.
