Memories of the bus crash....

Thank you Sunday mornings. The movie came on. A love story I haven't watched in years. The first time I watched this movie I was jolted during the last scene when he asks her to take him back. Not because of the intense passion, or the acting, but because the bus that I was on pulled into New York city while side swiping another bus. I remember it well. The movie ended as we sat patiently in our seats, a tear grew from my eye, and before it fell I shook off the feeling and departed the double folding doors to ignite a smoke and wait for another ride.

The bus driver yelled at me for having the nerve to exit his vehicle on a busy highway. I told him that he had just hit a bus and perhaps wasn't the best person to be giving orders. He made a threat. I don't remember what he said, but I laughed and tossed my cigarette to the ground by his feet. I kindly thanked him for extending my fourteen hour trip from Maine that day because I now had an extra few hours to sit next to the aromatic portable toilet, between the guy passionate about cheese doodles and the blackberry addict.

The police came, told us we were wasting their time and sent our buses back on their way. Only in New York does a man watching a love story while riding on a bus that hits another bus get yelled at by the driver and scorned by the local police for giving them a hassle.

Then in Vermont, when I finally returned, I told another great story that couldn't have been found anywhere but on the road.

Wherever I go, whatever happens next, I will miss retreating to this little mountain paradise. The hills forced me to forge my own adventures, whether it be when walking up a hill while imagining the crest, or sitting on a bench at dusk waiting for a stranger to walk by and smile while looking me in the eyes. This beauty, this unrivaled human spirit has now been added to the wonderful, difficult to deal with, often spontaneous, and dreadfully passionate package that is me.

The next moment will hold great beauty, true pain, and endless moments for insight, but here and now I am happy with the mountains, with the smile of a stranger, and with the hope that the crest of the hill will make each upward step worth it. It isn't as simple as just starting a new day and believing once again. And although the mountains and smiles have saved me before, today my smile was given by a woman.

Her compassion and love leave me questioning it all, wondering what comes next, and understanding that none of it matters with her by my side. When she smiles her eyes smile too. Her hands touch so softly, and when she exhales with her head on my chest I feel the release and freedom of bliss that could never be found in a mountain moment when traveling alone. A hand tightens, grasping my body, as she breaths in. My lips touch her head gently but my gratitude for the moment goes beyond a kiss.

On the road of life, if we accept that we are always traveling and turning around new bends, we will surely find whatever it is we are looking for. Even if it doesn't last, as moments often fade, the truth that a connection worth leaving it all behind has happened can last a thousand years. As we are human, and destined to die, we can't escape the truth that one minute, one second of our lives can be spent with another in a place that can last an eternity. To be born alone with the truth that we will die alone is not a worry at all for anyone who has been truly alive for a single minute.

Maybe this morning, and the recollection of cigarettes and tears, has given me all I need to let me know that I am exactly where I need to be.