Stitched With Its Color

Today, I rode the bus into Portland to submit some forms at my school, at the last minute.
Often, riding the bus is an un-enjoyable smelly, cramped experience, and, well...today it was too. I felt actually rude for the amount of coughing I was doing at the rank smell of cigarettes that the air was literally thick with.


Since I find walking so pleasant, even and sometimes especially when I'm by myself, I of course walked to get something to eat. And, incidently, walked much too far, turned around and found what I was looking for. I just had to follow the smell of all manner of foods, ethnic and otherwise, and trace them back to the food carts. I had heard nothing but good things (from one person) of 808, which serves hawaiian food, and so, I went there. The food was amazing. I paid exactly seven dollars for a large portion of 808 fried chicken, which comes on a bed of cabbage, with a scoop of white rice and another, separate scoop of cold macaroni salad. I was too hungry for my own good, and so between then and now, have eaten all of the food, about three meals worth under more normal circumstances.


Waiting for the bus proved to be longer than I had hoped for, and it was very windy, and cold. Unfortunately, I had made a mistake  typical of myself, and seeing the sunshine, hadn't brought any sort of a jacket. Needless to  say, by the time I actually got on the bus, my hands were numb, and my nose was red, my eyes a little watery.
And I looked up at the ceiling of the bus above where I was sitting, and I saw that there was a poem printed directly over my head. I really do appreciate the poems written on the bus. There have been a few quite disappointing ones, but in general, they actually inspire some type of thought. This one definitely did. It went like this:


Your absence has run through me like thread through a
needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its
color.


Something about it almost made me cry, after I read it the first time. I realized, shortly, that it had something to do with the fact that I distinctly feel the absence of so many people at this time in my life. And in my mind, I saw the picture of me, with a giant hole through my stomach, threads of all different colors going through it, and leaving a trail on the ground everywhere I go. That sounds much more strange then I would like it to. Anyway, I sat and thought about it for almost the whole bus ride home. This thought, in my mind, it was set to music. The song was "Postcards From Far Away" by Coldplay. Now that I think about that, it's actually fitting, isn't it?


When I'm thoughtful, I've often been told that I look upset. I'd like to think it's possible that anyone happening to glance over my way more than once, wondered why this girl sitting all the way in the back of the bus surrounded by smelly, old men appeared to be so perpetually angry with the world (then again, I think that says enough right there, doesn't it). Really, I wasn't angry. Just a little bit lonely, heart-achy, thinking of an obscure poem on the bus on a beautiful afternoon.