The Consolation of Art

[cosmolinguist]

When I'm waiting for a bus I often think, being partially sighted, I'm living in a slightly altered version of the children's book Where's My Cow?

Where's my bus?
Is that my bus?
It is close enough now to look blue.
That's a different kind of bus!

Stupid privatization of public transport. All the buses down this street go the same place, but some of them cost twice as much as others.

And they're also far more frequent.

I am poor. So I keep waiting.

This is the only time I miss London. You don't have to care about this there; all the buses cost the same. This is why they can all be red. Of course, like everything else in London, that cost is many lots.

It could be argued my cheap buses cost that much too, it's just that I pay some of the maddening price in having to ignore a bus going where I want to go, knowing it will get there before I can.

Where's my bus?
Is that my bus?
It is close enough now that it doesn't really look much like a bus at all.
It is a big stupid truck!

Everything looks like a bus when you're half blind, though. Especially when it's cold out.

There are lots of big trucks and vans and things speeding along this big road. Tricking me. My dad once told me he always looks at the cabs of semis to see where they're from. He will regularly see ones from Wisconsin and Iowa. Here I see a van hired from Salford.

I traded the boredom of nearly-uninterrupted farmland for the bustle of the big city; rather than the smell of good topsoil and freshly-minted oxygen I get vans from Salford roaring around the concrete jungle.

Where's my bus?!
Is that my bus?!
No, it's tiny.
It's a goddam car.
What's the matter with you, Holly?

Wishful thinking, I guess. The bus should be here in time to get me to work, but it's a close thing. I hope nice people are working today, who won't glare at me too much.

Sometimes this wait makes me wish I could drive. Oh to be free of these shackles of surly bus drivers and never having the right change. But then I contemplate parking, affording gas, learning to call it petrol, taxes, insurance, and then what happens when something breaks? I can't even handle it that our washing machine isn't working again.

Not being able to drive is part of the reason my parents accept that I live so far away. In the spare words we share with each other it's impossible to explain the benefits of living here, but I don't want to hurt their feelings by seeming too grateful to be so far away, so I point to the buses as a good, safe excuse.

But they're not meant to be just an excuse. They're meant to get me to work this morning. I check the time, watching it tip to the wrong side of 7 a.m.

I look up just in time to see...

A tractor! The tractors I'm most used to are my dad's, most of which were older than me and not as speedy as this. They bumped along through clods of that good topsoil, chewed up grass, or at best rumbled along on gravel roads. This wide smooth black road would've been sheerest luxury for their poor old suspensions.

This tractor is a Massey-Ferguson, I note when it gets close enough. A brand I am delighted to recognize, though I know it from tractor shows I went to with my dad (and even my grandma) when I aws a kid.

I loved them: the smell of oil and grease, the ancient rhythmic pulses of small engines, the exotic names. On the John Deere/International schism -- which loomed large amongst the boys in my school, as did Chevy/Ford and Arctic Cat/Polaris -- we were firmly on the red side, with representatives of a few minor denominations thrown in (Allis-Chalmers, Farmall, even a Ford tractor). But at the tractor shows there were strange brand names: White, whose tractors, to my great childish disappointment, were grey. Minneapolis-Moline, which made me feel dizzy because the name of a town I'd heard of and been to was there on the side of a tractor. And Massey-Ferguson. A name that evoked sunny days watching old-fashioned threshing with my dad and a flood of memories were superimposed on the grey road and the grey sky...

...And my bus, the one I'd been so earnestly, optimistically, magical-thinkingly waiting for, was suddenly zooming past me. I may have sworn. I might have stamped the ground while doing so. I am sure I flailed my arms at the receding bus, halfway between throwing roundhouse punches at it and futilely signaling it to stop, much too late. I saw red, even if it was just its tail lights quickly shrinking into the distance towards more alert commuters.

I plucked my phone out of my bag to share my misery. Although even as I tapped out the text message to a friend, hoping to elicit pity, I was aware of how ridiculous a predicament I was finding myself in. How many people could say "I just missed my bus because I was preoccupied admiring a tractor going down the street"?

I got a reply while I was still waiting for the next bus. It broke through my gloomy thoughts about being late for work as if the sun were breaking through these damn Manchester clouds:

"Machinery is art."

Comments

[haggis.livejournal.com]

Not much I can add to this. Absolutely bloody brilliant.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

awesome. and reminded me to share this with you. though we may have done so already and forgotten


was 4H a thing for you growing up?

also we *so* do this when waiting for buses. especially at night when all you get is headlamps!

[cosmolinguist]

4H existed as a cultural phenomenon that was very important to a lot of kids, but I wasn't allowed anything to do with it.

Oh god, at night it's worse, because not only do all headlights look pretty much the same, but they blind me to everything around them; my vision's slow to adjust in the dark and the bright lights ruin what night vision I have.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

what did you think of the song? we're really into twee still.

at least sunset is getting later again

sending you hugs

[cosmolinguist]

I can't get the video to work, sorry.

And I don't have to get buses any more since I moved to Levenshulme (which also made it easier to get to work at 7:30 in the morning like I had to!) but yeah, it's still good that the days are getting longer.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

have a link instead then! http://youtu.be/oOCqVuWslhg Levenshulme sounds so good

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

this is so good! As someone who watched her bus roll away this evening, I particularly resonate. And the title was a timed-release punchline that unfurled throughout the whole essay. <3

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you! I'm such a fan of your writing; it makes the compliments extra sweet.

I'm sorry for your similar rejection by buses.

I read yesterday about a book called The Consolation of Philosophy. It sounds like I like the title better than I'd like the book, but I really like the title. Even though it was using a broad definition of "philosophy" as enquiry and knowledge, I'm still at least as likely to seek consolation in art. And I think this is a good example of that. I'm glad you think so too! <3

[haggis.livejournal.com]

If it's the Alain de Botton book, I've got it and yes, the title is the best bit. However, if you wanna borrow it, let me know.

[cosmolinguist]

This'll be the book that that one (which I've never heard of) is named after; it was written by Boethius, a sixth-century Roman who was sentenced to death and tried to find, well, consolation in philosophy.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

I googled the name to check and had a suspicion it was the Boethius one but I don't have a copy of that!

[cosmolinguist]

It doesn't sound very good anyway. The consolation of philosophy is apparently, according to him, that you don't need consolation because there's nothing really wrong with you. (That this is from someone who was bemoaning his loss of riches and fame when he was about to be executed doesn't give me a lot of faith in his ability to discern what a person can be legitimately worried about.) Also he was a Christian I think and there's a bunch of God stuff in it, which I've never found that consoling, myself.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh and that, as Andrew says, "the wheel of fortune goes up as well as down," but that's not a great deal of help to me either. Anyway he only learned that from Christopher Eccleston in 24 Hour Party People.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

The Stoics might be more consoling. Or maybe not.

[cosmolinguist]

The unfolding thing is nice too, because Where's My Cow? started out as a book mentioned in other books, before becoming a proper book that you could buy in itself, which is another kind of art unfolding I think.

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I really got the sense of preoccupation here. I'm a terrible "waiter"--I can relate.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, sometimes it seems that every thought I have sparks off a chain of other thoughts, which can be either a blessing or a curse when I'm waiting. My brain works like those chains of links people click on, on Wikipedia or TV Tropes, where they start out looking for information on steam trains in India and end up at the Anthropic Principle.

[basric.livejournal.com]

(=

[muchtooarrogant.livejournal.com]

I think I would've been so frustrated at missing the bus that I would've hated that response.

Buses aren't required to stop if you're standing at the, um, bus stop? What if you were completely blind, would you be obliged to wave at every engine which sounded like a bus? Crazy!

I enjoyed your remembrances of childhood, and comparisons of country to city life. Well written!

Dan

[cosmolinguist]

What if you were completely blind, would you be obliged to wave at every engine which sounded like a bus? Crazy!

I have often wondered this myself! I don't know what people do! Maybe buses would be more likely to stop if a person had an obvious "hello I'm blind" thing like a white cane or a dog? Somehow I doubt it though when bus drivers will take any excuse not to stop, it seems... (There are plenty of kind, nice ones too; it's not fair to overgeneralize, but it seems the bad ones are more ilkely to stick in my memory!) But no, there's no requirement that the driver stop just because people are waiting at a bus stop.

[muchtooarrogant.livejournal.com]

Huh, here you have to be standing close to the stop, and this definition sometimes gets changed depending on how the driver's feeling, but they are required to stop if someone is standing under the shelter or by the pole. No frantic waving is required at all, except of course for when you're running to catch the bus, and it's already taken off. I suspect you've already done this, but I'd call and yell at your local bus authority.

Dan

[cosmolinguist]

My husband tells me they are legally required to stop. When I asked who to write to/yell at/lobby Parliament about to enforce this, he laughed cruelly, making it clear to me I had no chance. He pointed out that they get penalized if they're late, but nothing bad happens to them if they don't pick people up.

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

This is great - I'm a huge Pratchett fan, but I think the references stand even if one isn't. Well-written, engaging, and so truthful!

[cosmolinguist]

I'm a huge Pratchett fan myself so was hoping it wouldn't seem too incomprehensible but it's hard for me to tell! I did go off on a longer tangent about Where's My Cow? at first -- a topic like "preoccupied" just seems to invite my unrefined thinking, which is so prone to that kind of digression -- but tried to keep it down to the preoccupying thoughts I already had :)

I was kind of worried it'd seem too rambly, even though it was my careful intention to present it that way, so i'm really glad you found it engaging too.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I liked that at least your friend understands! Machinery IS an art.

Does the bus even stop (as in, always) if you don't flag it down? They're supposed to (otherwise, that's practically impossible for a person with sight difficulties), but that doesn't mean they do.

I remember being bypassed over and over by the city buses my sister and I used to get to school, probably in part because we were smaller and also kids, so SURELY we didn't really want to get on the 23rd Avenue bus that took the hospital workers to the Lovejoy district. :(

[cosmolinguist]

My husband told me that buses are legally required to stop.

"But-- Who-- What-- How can I fix this, then?" I said. He laughed a theatrical laugh, meant to convey utter hopelessness.

"They get in trouble if they're late," he said. "But nothing happens to them if they don't pick up passengers."

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

It is indeed art! And so interesting. *smile*

[cosmolinguist]

I'm so glad you think so! :) And yes, I'm glad my friend managed to Get It and not just laugh at me for admiring tractors.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

I agree; the ability to understand is always important in a friend -- even if they don't particularly share your interest, although it sounds like your friend might have. *smile*

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

One of your best posts ever.

[cosmolinguist]

Gosh! That I'm bewildered you'd think so only makes it the more delightful a compliment.

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

I don't know why either; it was just so...you - so truthful, but also whimsical, as well as being spot-on with the topic. I cannot explain my smitten-ness, I can only declare it.

[cosmolinguist]

No explanation is required; your happiness is sufficient for my own :)

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

Very cute! In Storm Lake, IA, almost the enmtire July 4th parade (their biggest holiday of the year) is comprised of tractors and fire trucks. The where's my bus imagery in connection to the cow totally made me giggle!

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yes, the little towns around where I'm from have those kinds of parades too -- tractors and fire trucks, shriners and teenage beauty queens, old men in lovingly restored classic cars.... I love it.

And I love that I could make you giggle :)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Please record this!