Patricia Johnson drives bus #46 from East to West San Francisco each day at 6 o’clock p.m. She sees all sorts of rundown, wayward souls board the bus for the hour long commute and offers each one a, "Hello!'

I went to San Francisco the last month of my high-school career with an intent to learn about public radio, specifically how to effectively relay stories. I planned my trip with firm goals in mind: I would intern for two weeks at KALW, San Francisco’s public radio station, I would make a radio piece, I would fit in, I would get audio for a podcast series of mine about water conservation.

The funny thing I’ve noticed in my travels is that I never get what I am expecting or hoping to; instead, I get some random case of serendipity that sticks with me more than anything planned ever could. Subtle moments of beauty and intricate human diversity always fill in the cracks of what I thought I would experience.

In terms of radio, I learned nothing new, and I completed none of my radio goals. When I was given nothing to do, I observed the flow of the station, I wrote a script for a future radio piece I have in mind, I planned future river trips from which to get audio, I asked for projects to edit, and I buddied up to journalists so that they would show me their recording and interviewing techniques. I had to actively seek out things to do. There was no pre-determined place for me; I had to make it, and eventually I earned respect. But, ultimately, I learned nothing that I hadn’t already known, and I accomplished none of my pre-outlined goals.

With all travel there is something powerful to be said of disappointment and distanced expectations: it gets you used to the fact that you never know what’s to come until it’s already done. It is of no significance to dwell upon the parts that fail to metastasis. But there was a point in my project where I regretted it; where I said to myself, “I am not improving my skills” and frowned upon myself.

I think about this now and want to laugh because the radio aspect of my project seems so infinitesimal and silly now. It was irrelevant to what I truly set out to do. I set out to hear stories. And stories I heard; all around me there were a million stories bubbling through city streets, ignoring one another, focused on the tasks at hand.

It’s funny how lonely cities are. It’s a strange paradox: where the greatest number of people are, the less people seem to notice one another. But, like anywhere, strangers sometimes collide and stories merge in ways we hadn’t expected and we send each other on slightly varied paths.

There are two specific interactions from my project that have burned into my mind. There are two random strangers that changed me more than any editing and recording skills ever could. I was told a piece of their stories more effectively than I could ever be taught.

When I think about this trip, taken in the last month of my high school career, I will return to two beautifully diverse human interactions; I will think of meeting Patricia Johnson at 6pm on a Saturday evening on bus #46, and I will think of the homeless old man with long yellow fingernails who showed me where to get “free ice cream.”

And these stories I will tell you:

Eye Contact:

The first thing I noticed was his long yellow fingernails, bent and cracking. To my right was Saks Fifth Avenue, full of its Prada and Gucci, to my left was a Starbucks, and right in front of me, sitting on the curb, was an old homeless man in tattered clothes with long yellow fingernails. He combed them through his hair as he spoke to a homeless African American woman in a wheelchair. They sat at the curb between Powell and Market Street. People fluttered around them like butterflies, off to do whatever it is hurried people do.

The two homeless on the curb, chatting just out of earshot, were like ghosts of the city; no one looked at them, not even when they offered a “God Bless” or “Can you spare some food?” And for an instant I swear I saw it all: all the beauty, all the tragedy, all the love, and all the loss. The contrast felt like a dream, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in either version of it.

My second day at the radio station, a colleague, so to speak, asked me if I had been to a bar yet. I told him I was 19. He felt awkward, but, to make him feel less awkward, I told him I had been asked to go out to bars a lot since being in the city. He looked at me surprised and said, “Who you hanging around?” I told him it was mostly random strangers that asked me. He laughed and said, “That’s weird; are you making eye contact?” I thought this was a weird question,

“Of course.”

“Well there’s your problem.”

“My problem?”

“You’re inviting them in.”

“So you mean I can’t look at or smile at anyone?”

“You smile too!?”

Cities are very strange places. People float around completely isolated between the classes. It is easy to sense what stories belong to whom, and which streets are safe, and who doesn’t qualify for sight. The homeless are the city’s ghosts.

Standing on the intersection between Powell and Market, I couldn’t take the contrast any longer. I had a homeless friend in New York two summers ago; her name was Sara, and I will never forget her asking me, “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have someone stare right through you?”

Standing on the intersection between Powell and Market, I decided to watch the interaction between passing strangers with their Juicy Couture bags and these two homeless strangers. This is how I had met Sara back in New York; I’d always see people happily glide by her not bothered by her crushed youth and ignored potential. But I didn’t want to be one of those people; I hope I never become comfortably desensitized.

I sat at the bar table in front of the windows in Starbucks, waiting to tally up how many people looked at the man with yellow fingers and the lady in the wheelchair, somewhat curious as to how invisible ghosts really are. Passing strangers guiltlessly strode by; no contact.

THINK THINK THINK, ANNEMARIE! There has to be some solution, some grand plan, that will make it all better!

After a good 30 minutes of waiting for someone, anyone, to look at these two ragged bodies, just to look at them, I began to panic. I kind of just broke. How can someone turn invisible? I started crying; the person next to me in Starbucks got up to sit somewhere else. I couldn’t tell if it was out of tact.

We are uncomfortable to look at "them." We are uncomfortable to look at them and then return home and stare at ourselves in the mirror. We are uncomfortable to admit that buying 100 dollar underwear is a strange thought in a store where a man sleeps in front at a curb. We are uncomfortable to keep on living our lives as we do, as high as we do, when there is suffering all around. We are insecure of the contrast, so we ignore it. So we stare right through it and we go home and we look in the mirror and we hang up our new clothes. We tell ourselves that the homeless heroin addicts prevent themselves from a better life, not that the streets breed addiction. We tell ourselves, “That could never have been me,” when from whom we are born is a game of luck. We tell ourselves we do good, when we toss change now and then so that we may stare through people in the future. We tell ourselves beautiful lies so that we may stay in our beautiful dream so that we may go home and look in the mirror and see what we want to see.

At this point in my "revelation" at Starbucks, I was angry. There is no simple "cure" to human greed. There is nothing any one individual can think up. It’s too big. It is an individual greed that is so ingrained in us, in our culture of fear, prosperity, growth, and legendary gold paved streets. I was angry, because we are told not to look at each other. I was angry, because in my time watching these two homeless, not one passing person had even glanced.

I had made a point of saying “Hello” to almost every homeless person I saw in San Francisco. This is what followed suit almost every time:

“Hello!”

“Young lady, do you have any change?”

“I actually only have a card. Sorry. I hope you have a good day!”

“God bless you! You’re good.”

I can’t tell you how many faces I saw light up simply from telling someone to have a good day. There was one homeless man that I forgot to tell to have a nice day; I realized it after I was already walking away. A few seconds later, I felt somebody close behind me; I turned around and it was him: “Excuse me miss, I just want to tell you that you are the nicest person that I have talked to in a long time, and I really appreciate that.” He immediately turned to walk away and I had no response. I will never forget that. I will never forget that because it made me feel so terrible; it made me feel awful that the nicest thing a person had heard in a long time was someone politely telling them, “I have no cash.”

I'm good?

I was so angry, thinking of this man, thinking of the man with yellow fingernails, thinking of the passed-out drunk in front of Saks the day prior, that I thought I was going to burst open. I was about to get up and find a more proper place to cry when a Haagen Daz delivery truck pulled up on the curb near the two homeless. It was making a delivery to the store next-door. A young man hopped out of the truck and went to the back to unload. I saw him hesitate once he noticed the homeless man with long yellow fingernails. He stared right at him.

Something amazing happened then:

The delivery boy looked.

He saw.

He felt.

He went in the back of the truck.

He returned with a miniature tub of Haagen Daz ice cream.

He gave the ice cream to the man.

He put his own job on the line, but he did it anyway.

The old man motioned for a spoon.

The delivery boy disappeared.

The homeless man waited.

The delivery boy returned with a spoon.

The delivery boy has no idea that somewhere right now, he is being returned to in the thoughts of strangers. I guess that’s what I am trying to say: a “small” deed can travel a long way and a long time, and you never know who needs it at exactly what point.

The delivery boy knows what he did for that man, but he has no idea of the effect he had on me: a random stranger inside a Starbucks waiting for someone to prove her wrong, to show her some ounce of good to convince her that where there is tragedy there is also immense human beauty.

The man with the yellow fingernails walked out of view.

The Haagen Daz truck pulled away.

I stood up from the coffee bar.

I bought a vitamin blend smoothly.

I exited Starbucks and gave the smoothie to the lady in the wheelchair.

She thanked me.

I told her to have a good evening.

On my way back to my hostel, I ran into the man with long yellow fingernails. He was sitting on the ground near an entrance to a parking garage. The first thing I thought was, “Oh jeez, I should have bought two smoothies.”

I glanced at him and smiled a big smile. Just as my colleague said, that invites people in.

“Hey, hey you!”

I suspected he was about to ask for money.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Come over here. I need to tell you something!”

I went over to him, nervous.

“Guess what?! They are giving away free ice cream down there!” He pointed down the street from where I had just come. I wanted to cry again, this time from endearment, but I held back and tried to match his enthusiasm.

“Oh really!?”

“Yeah, yeah! And if you hurry maybe they’re still giving some out!”

He smiled a big toothless smile. He looked happier than anyone I had seen in a long time.

“That’s awesome! Thank you so much for telling me.”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Well, have a nice day, sir.”

“I’m trying!” then he drew in a deep breath and repeated in a broken and pained voice, “I’m trying.”

It was only then when I realized the cruel mockery of the phrase, “Have a nice day.”

I had to turn away quickly so he wouldn’t see my tears. I fell apart just out of his sight. As I walked down the sidewalk, unable to stop crying on the way back to my hostel, people looked at me like I was insane and sped up their pace for a quicker disjoint.

I will never forget the immense tragedy and the immense beauty that came together all in one in that small fragment of time. The two contrasting worlds were colliding. The worst and the most beautiful pieces of humanity witnessed.

If you pay attention to what is going on around you, I think it’s enough to make anyone fall apart. To fall apart, broken and in tears, and to recollect as a better, stronger version is what the city is craving. Desensitization does not have a place in this powerful world. The potential we have in the name of love, in the name of offering up a Haagen Daz or a vitamin shake or a smile, is incredible.

I will never forget the man with the long yellow fingernails or the delivery boy who gave him free ice cream.

When I return to thoughts of my trip, I will not think of meeting NPR’s CEO or his fancy shoes that I complimented and most definitely wished I had owned; I will think of the man with the long yellow fingernails and the streets that breed such tragedy and such potential for diverse human beauty.

And now, we must go forth as a collected, stronger version.

Journal Entry 142, May 21st, 2016: Patricia Johnson

I am a terrible human being.

There is always an opportunity to do good, but few times does life so clearly display the right thing to do in front of you.

I met a woman from China today; she lives in Texas now. She asked me, "Are you trying to get on the #27 bus?"

I said, "Yes."

She said, "Me too! I don't think we're at the right stop though."

She was trying to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. I heard the man that gave her directions; he told her to get on bus #28 not #27, but because I felt awkward and because I didn't want to question her reasoning, I said, "Oh, I thought it stops here?"

"No, the man that just gave me directions told me it stops down the street." She waited a moment and cleared her throat. I could tell she wanted me to walk down the street with her.

I said, although I doubted her, "Do you want to go check down the street with me?"

"Yes!"

We walked down the street together, an odd pair, talking about random things. She wasn’t completely “with it” in the popular connotation of "with it." She was in a place of idealism where everyone is the same and there is no embarrassment or shame in making mistakes or asking questions. She took a card from a person trying to sell “psychic crystals,” and after 30 seconds of listening to him preach, she finally realized that he was trying to get her to buy something; she threw the card back at him and shouted "no!" Then she turned around to me and smiled wildly.

The #27 drove past us, back towards the stop where we just were. We were too far away to catch it at that point. I asked her if she wanted to turn around and wait for the next #27. She said "No, I don't think it actually stopped where we first were. Let's keep going!"

I didn't want to keep going, I felt the correct place to be was behind us, but I went with her. She was happy to have company. I could tell.

There was a man in a fancy business suit outside of a fancy restaurant talking rapidly on his phone. I glanced over at him for a moment; he had frown marks. All of a sudden, she stopped walking and veered towards him. She went right up to him just as he ended his call; I wanted to say, “Let’s ask someone else, he seems busy,” or “I’m figuring it out on google maps,” or “let’s just go back,” but she was already up next to him:

"Excuse me, do you live here?" The man looked up, irritated, and replied in an annoyed tone, "Yes, I live here."

"I'm not from here. I am trying to get to the Golden Gate Bridge, and she's trying to get to Golden Gate Park. Can you tell us how to get there?" She pointed towards me. I wasn’t sure what to say.

"Well, those are two different places!" The man was frustrated. "I'm sure you know the bridge is that way” He pointed to where we could clearly see the bridge in the sky, “And you're walking the opposite way,” he pointed to our forward direction. He grimaced. “I’m sure you'll find it."

We thanked him.

For some reason I was terribly mad at this lady all of a sudden. Maybe not mad, but I felt justified to leave her. I was embarrassed for some reason and was almost angry with her for it. It only lasted for a second, but I still wanted to get away from her.

As we were walking away from the man, I told her, "Since we're going to separate places, I'm going to call an über. I'd invite you, but it won't be going where you're going."

"So we aren't near?"

"Well I think the buses would have gone to both places.” (Lie because I felt awkward and never wanted to object to a stranger and now needed to keep up the cowardice and was not willing to be straight and good in the stupid name of being comfortable and stagnant). “But I'll be going to my stop."

"Oh"

"I hope you find your way to the bridge alright! I'm sure you will! Here, take my map!"

"I already have one."

Her voice sounded hurt. She looked like an abandoned puppy. Although it was not my job to find my way with her, and I probably shouldn't have affiliated myself with her at all if I wasn't going to do it to my most genuine and best ability, I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I turned away from her.

Shortly after, my uber pulled up and I was at the Golden Gate Park. I went to the science museum where there were so many amazing exhibits, some about albino crocadiles, others about marine life, one about the origin of life, but I couldn't enjoy any of them. I kept on thinking about how disingenuine I had just been.

I can’t remember anything I have been more ashamed of. I hardly ever lie, I am terrible at it, and I always speak up when I think it will help someone. So why had I gone back on myself? My understood identity felt like it was gone.

I hold these values: 1) Whenever the opportunity comes to brighten someone's day or to do good, you should take it. 2) If you are going to do something, truly do it. Be all in.

I’ve always done a relatively good job at sticking to these values, but I completely disregarded them with the encounter I had. I let stupid awkwardness and attempted tact and reservedness, and my image of all things, get in the way of what actually mattered: doing good ALWAYS. I started realizing that I'm exactly what makes me get heavy boots: impressionable and negative under pressure.

Yes, I got to the Golden Gate Park on time, but I never enjoyed it because I was thinking of how selfish I am; my image was being recalculated. Just like that. And why do I even care, why am I not asking “Where is this lady? Did she make it okay? Does she feel okay?"

Trying to get back to my hostel, I boarded the wrong bus and was taken 45 minutes in the wrong direction. I asked the bus driver, who was coincidentally Chinese, where we were and he yelled at me to get out. "Cross the street and Go to 48th street and wait for the next bus." "48th street?" "You're on 47th so where do you think 48th is! Down one block!" "Thank you, sir." He sped off.

I started walking to 47th, trying to assess the safety of the unfamiliar neighborhood. I said out loud, "Karma. Just Karma. I deserve this." I then laughed out loud, alone like a fool, which made me laugh even harder.

I began thinking about what my high school geology teacher, Kayo Ogilby, once told me, "Annemarie, if you did something negative and you're upset about it and thinking about it, that means you're not okay with it. You're not blind to it. It means that next time, you know you won't do it again. You are now closer to who you want to be. Messing up just means you have evolved. To become a better person, people make mistakes and must be uncomfortable to grow. It's beautiful in its own way. If you're not okay with something, that says something about you."

I was thinking of Kayo’s words when I got on the bus. I was the first passenger. That's when I met Patricia Johnson, an African American bus driver. I asked her how her day was and she said, "Wonderful, absolutely wonderful! There was a man who left his laptop on my bus earlier, and he asked me if it was likely he’d get it back. He was so upset, and I wasn't sure what would come of it, but I helped him contact the bus department, and someone grabbed his laptop for him, and he got it back! Can you believe that!? I’m so happy!"

"Wow! That’s awesome!"

"He must have been so happy!"

All of a sudden I cracked. I needed to tell someone. I needed to spill guilt.

Like a little kid who just broke into the cookie jar, I quickly confessed: "I did something not so nice today." She looked at me through the rearview mirror, skeptical, and then bursted out laughing.

"I’m sure it couldn’t have been that bad! What did you do?"

"I was a coward."

I told her the whole story.

"I stepped out instead of in."

She could see I was all bent up about it.

"Oh honey, it's not your fault. Sometimes things happen like that."

"It is easy to do the selfish thing, but it is filling to do the selfless thing."

"That's true. Very wise."

"I passed up the opportunity to do good."

She sank deep into her seat for a moment, took a deep breath, and started telling me, "I had one of those missed opportunities myself the other day."

She told me about a “spiritual connection” she had with a Prius. She was going to buy it; she had it all lined up. She even heard a quote from some movie tell her “don’t hesitate” in her head, but she decided to go to the beach when she was about to buy the car, and when she got back, it was gone. She was really upset about this “spiritual prius.” Her voice cracked a couple times, and by the end I knew almost everything about this holy car. It wasn’t quite a “missed opportunity” I could relate to, but I could relate to her despair.

I told her how a teacher of mine once told me, "You gotta be okay with making mistakes and doing the wrong thing, because, with each mistake, you learn what not to do and where to go instead. What gnaws at you tells you that you're not okay with it, and that it's not you. Sometimes it's a good thing to feel a bad thing. So I guess don't hesitate in the future."

“Wow, that's a beautiful thing your teacher said. What a wise person.”

“Yeah, he’s really wise.”

“I really needed to hear that. A really beautiful thing your teacher said. I want to remember it. Could you say it again?"

I told her again.

We talked about how there is no joy without sorrow and how there is no beauty without the bad and how there is no love without loss.

Then she told me, "I think we met for a reason. It's the little things in life that matter the most. I really think everything happens for a reason. Good conversations. The little things in life that are important. If not, what's the point?"

“Nothing.”

“I almost quit this job because my boss was so mean to me. She was so close to firing me. But I persevered. I did it. And I’m glad.”

She told me about the private christian school she went to when she was little and pointed it out when we passed it. It was long since closed. At this point, the whole entire bus was full; we had been talking for over half an hour. People were starting to listen in to our conversation; when I looked behind me, everyone in earshot was smiling.

I had seen many weathered faces board buses, never returning my smiles, avoiding eye contact, looking like they were about to break. I always wonder where they are going. Where had they come from, what had they seen to make them look so full of despair?

And so it felt weird seeing so many smiles on bus #47. And it felt even stranger when I realized that they were smiling because of my conversation with Patricia. Never before had I seen so clearly how good thoughts and deeds spread. Over states, over ages, over professions, over cities, over a commute. It was incredibly beautiful.

An old man started asking me some questions about where I was from and my hobbies. It turned out he was from the same valley I was then living and we had kayaked some of the same rivers.

Patricia yelled my name, "Annemarie!" Someone tapped me and said, "The bus driver is calling you!" I turned to see what she wanted; she pointed out the window and said, “There's the bus driver boss I told you about that was so mean to me!” I said "no way!" and laughed. Everyone laughed.

For a brief moment in time, we were strangers operating as a collective unit. We were comfortable and not so separate for the time being.

When I got off the bus, I asked for her name again,

"Patricia. Patricia Johnson.”

"I won't forget it."

The whole front of the bus waved to me when she pulled away. I thought about how, had I not made a mistake earlier in the day, and reflected upon it, none of us would have come together in the bus. The thought made me smile. I was me again.

It's the little things. It's making mistakes. It's who you want to be. It's having enough courage to become one with it.

Thank you, Patricia Johnson.

Thank you, Strangers. You now exist in the minds of readers.