Bus Report #422
I keep forgetting to write about a beautiful experience on the 2 Clement I had a couple weeks ago.
There is a neighborhood character I see around all the time, an older man who lives and dresses as a woman, unfortunately not too convincingly but I am pretty sure everyone refers to her as 'she', so that's what we will do, too. Let's call her Loretta, because she looks like a Loretta.
I was on a crowded 2 Clement, sitting in the seats that line the back of the bus that face another set of seats (an older MUNI coach, I think). Loretta sat down across from me. She was wearing a linen suit, a light green scarf and hoop earrings. She crossed her legs and started rummaging through her plastic bag for something. She drew out a scrap of paper and started to obsessively fold it, turn it over, unfold it and then fold it again. I didn't really pay attention until I saw the final product, a simple yet lovely paper crane.
She put it back in the bag and took out another piece of paper.
I sat across from her as she folded six cranes in the space of maybe 8 minutes. Each crane was made out of recycled pages from magazines that had all been cut to the same dimensions.
I was mesmerized: I stared as she deftly folded each crane and put them away.
I looked around, no one else seemed to notice what she was doing.
She got out at 6th and Clement, after finishing another five cranes.
I have a new appreciation for Loretta. I never had a problem with her before, but now I feel I know her a little better, whether or not I actually do.
There is a neighborhood character I see around all the time, an older man who lives and dresses as a woman, unfortunately not too convincingly but I am pretty sure everyone refers to her as 'she', so that's what we will do, too. Let's call her Loretta, because she looks like a Loretta.
I was on a crowded 2 Clement, sitting in the seats that line the back of the bus that face another set of seats (an older MUNI coach, I think). Loretta sat down across from me. She was wearing a linen suit, a light green scarf and hoop earrings. She crossed her legs and started rummaging through her plastic bag for something. She drew out a scrap of paper and started to obsessively fold it, turn it over, unfold it and then fold it again. I didn't really pay attention until I saw the final product, a simple yet lovely paper crane.
She put it back in the bag and took out another piece of paper.
I sat across from her as she folded six cranes in the space of maybe 8 minutes. Each crane was made out of recycled pages from magazines that had all been cut to the same dimensions.
I was mesmerized: I stared as she deftly folded each crane and put them away.
I looked around, no one else seemed to notice what she was doing.
She got out at 6th and Clement, after finishing another five cranes.
I have a new appreciation for Loretta. I never had a problem with her before, but now I feel I know her a little better, whether or not I actually do.
posted by Rachel at 1:06 PM
1 Comments:
What a lovely image you posted!
My daughter stopped biting her nails by folding hundreds and hundreds of cranes. She just needed to learn to do something constructive with her hands.
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