Routines

listening to: Regina Spektor

Begin to Hope

Fall is in full swing here in Japan. Everywhere I look there are spots of orange in the trees, glowing warmly against the dark shiny leaves. Globes of kaki (persimmons) and the beginnings of mikan (mandarin oranges) taunt me on the way to Seiwa school. I listen to the music on my headphones and walk that long stretch up the hill to my favorite school in the world, passing by rice fields freshly strewn with manure, the acrid scent stinging my nostrils as I ascend the hill.

The music flows...

This is how it works

You're young until you're not

You love until you don't

You try until you can't

You laugh until you cry

You cry until you laugh

And everyone must breathe

Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works

You peer inside yourself

You take the things you like

And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made

And stick it into some

Someone else's heart

Pumping someone else's blood

And walking arm in arm

You hope it don't get harmed

But even if it does

You'll just do it all again

And on the radio

You hear November Rain

That solo's awful long

But it's a good refrain

You listen to it twice

'Cause the DJ is asleep

On the radio

But let's rewind all this and go back to the beginning. Back to the part where I have to stand at the station every morning at 7:25 AM, back to the start of the morning where I sit on the bench with my cold cafe latte in hand and my red knapsack at my side and wait patiently for the bus to arrive...

This is where I think about screwing up someone else's routine.

Let me elaborate: I’ve been taking this bus for about two years now (on and off because of the rotational basis of my school visits), and every time I take this bus I see the same people. There’s the lady with the long brown hair, always shiny and wet from her shower in the morning, perpetually clad in a skirt and sandals. There’s the school girl, the one with the shirt always tucked haphazardly in the back of her navy, (self) cropped skirt, mirror held firmly in hand as she puts on layer after layer of mascara.

And then there’s Mr. Anxiety, the guy who is almost always accompanied by The Unfriendly Lady (I’d tried talking to her once before, you see, with unpleasant results). Mr. Anxiety has a pleasant expression, his clothes are always clean, and his hair is rather tidy for a shag cut. But it’s when he boards the bus that you can then tell there is something not quite right with him.

There he is, standing calmly at the bus stop, waiting with his bag in his hand. The bus stops. The door slides open. There’s a clambering of heavy footsteps up the stairs of the bus and then—WHOOSH! He’s off! He’s flying towards the back of the bus, with an extremely anxious expression on his face. He always sits at the very back row, on the left side. The lady sits in front of him. I always sit one row ahead, but on the right. From this angle, I can always see him out of the corner of my eye.

We all have our preferred seats and our own special routine. But if someone new happens to sit in your favorite seat one morning, there’s nothing to it: you simply move to another part of the bus. But this man’s anxiety to sit in the back seat on the left is truly amazing to witness. Sometimes he will have an umbrella with him and as he flies towards the back, his umbrella smacks into the other seats—one time flying dangerously close to my face. But when he sits down, he’s as calm as ever.

Once, I’d opened up the window next to me to let in a bit of a breeze on the muggy bus when suddenly I heard murmuring and there he was, leaning over me with his arms outstretched: he promptly shut the window. I didn’t know what to do after that; he wasn’t angry, he never said anything to me, but I knew that if I opened up the window again it might trigger something. So I’d left it shut.

But lately I’ve noticed that he hasn’t been that anxious to sit in the back. He seems to have calmed down. Instead of flying towards the back, he now walks. So I was thinking, what would happen if I suddenly sat in his spot one day? After all, I get on the bus before he does. Would he throw a fit? Grab me and pull me out? Or would he sit on the right side instead, as docile as ever? A part of me wants to try this out, but the other part of me thinks it’s mean. I’m just curious, that’s all. What do you think?

On the radio
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio