You know that feeling when you get on the bus alone on a bad day? You forgot your book, your phone died, your friend ran for it but wasn’t fast enough and it's only you and the windows and ten strangers and you look hard at the trees and the too-bright awnings flashing by and you think you’re totally alone and love was never real anyway? Then a man in a business suit sits down next to you and complains about how hot it is and you think, “You’re right. It is hot,” and you see a little boy on the sidewalk spinning so fast his little boy t-shirt is pulling up over his little boy stomach, and the baby two seats up laughs so hard she falls back on her mother’s lap and you think maybe love is real after all?
Despite all the beauty in mountains and blue skies and the color of sun coming through the leaves, we've been handed no meaning. What we do and tell each other, the dreams and ideas we believe, every stupid thing we do to fill our time is the marrow of life. How tall the buildings are downtown (don’t act like you haven’t stood with your neck bent, wondering), the woman who reminds us of our grandmother when she takes our hand to step down from the train, the car full of teenage girls one lane over singing loudly and out of key to the same song on our radio. Consider this a field guide. This is how you’ll know us. We are all ecstatic and sad and busy and bored and in love and alone. We are all ridiculous animals wearing clothes, listening to pop music and trying to make sense of what it means to be alive. These are the things we say to explain ourselves, these are the things we have seen and done and believe.
These are people.