On Friday when I got off the train there were no buses or cabs. That happens on Fridays. There are too many people in the city and things get messed up. I stood on a corner that allows me to see two different bus stops and watched for who would come first. A bus that doesn't usually stop at one of those stops was letting people off. I didn't think he'd let anyone on but he did. As we rode up Third I saw my second bus ahead of us. He was at a stop and had a red light so I took the chance, jumped off my bus and ran toward him waving my pass. I thought he was about leave but he opened the door. Catching these two buses got me home fifteen minutes earlier than I usually get home.

Last night a similar scenario occurred. This time there were no buses because a baseball game was messing with traffic. One came and again my second bus was in front of us. We got to the same place where the red light had stopped the bus on Friday but the light changed and he sped off.

It's hard not to think that I did something right on Friday and something wrong yesterday. Part of me knows better. We make a zillion little choices every day most of which we make without much deliberation. All of which move us in one direction and not another. And all of the people around us are making choices too.

Lately I feel like I'm tossed through a tumble. No sense of agency. Too much frustration with everyone else. And bad meaning making.

I sat near the couple with the matching barrettes the other day. The fact that I had written something about them made me nervous.

Of what?

Can't say.

There are people I see every day. We travel in parallel tracts and don't acknowledge one another. Recording an observation made me feel more intimate with them somehow. Silly, because it's all happening in me. The observation. Even the recording. It is out of me since it is written but it hasn't changed the relationship. And yet it feels like it has. Something feels different. It's like when I made a public acknowledgement that I was aware of them I took on a responsibility. I'm not sure what I mean.

There are moments when the ignoring is breached. One morning it was raining and a man said, "Oh! You're getting all wet." He moved to my side and covered me with his umbrella. It was an act of kindness that cheered everyone who heard the story. He and I have chatted since then. He takes an earlier train to the same shuttle I take. He works at a building next to mine. We take the same bus, a different train, the same shuttle. That kind of thing always makes me wonder. It just seems like something to notice. There isn't really anything to make of it all. But noticing matters.

And again.

I'm not sure what I mean.