Beautiful Souls

One of the unspoken rules of transit use in Vancouver is not to make eye contact and certainly not to smile. These are apparent invitations for random people to talk to you. There is this weird social phenomena where the bus is completely silent because everyone is plugged in to their MP3 players or texting away on their phone while keeping their heads down and eyes firmly downcast.

I have a tendency not to subscribe to this rule, I often make eye contact and you can't not smile at someone once you have looked them in the eye. What else would you do? Sometimes people are so shocked that I have smiled at them and are caught off guard and quickly look away or on more than one occasion it has been the impetus for them to start chatting with me.

Last Friday I was sitting in the accordian section of the bus with my newly acquired record player on my lap. No no generally sits in those seats because the seats face each other. When you sit there you may have t0 face some stranger with only a few feet between you. I thought that I would take up the least space if I sat there as no one would want to sit across from me. We get to the Main street stop and just as I look up I happen to meet eyes with this guy and then he proceeds to sit right across from me. For a split second I am not sure what I should do, should I do the Vancouver thing and look down or should I look up at him and smile? Afterall he is sitting right across from me only 2 feet away. I of course look up and smile and he smiles back. This breaks the akward tension and we start talking. In a span of 5 minutes we know each other's names, where we live, have chatted about music and record players, have high-fived each other and have shown each other our tattoos. He even told me that he could tell that it wouldn't be akward sitting across from each other because I had kind eyes and was cute. We got caught up in the conversation that he missed his stop. This guy had piercings and arms full of tattoos but he turned out to be one of my friendliest people I have met on a bus.

Then there was Sunday afternoon and Chuck. I was waiting for the bus when this man came up to me, an older man, big and tough looking, in a leather jacket, all he wanted to know was when the next bus would arrive. He is a self-described "Hells Angels" type but I ended up having a really great conversation with him. I had a book in hand the "A Thousand Dreams" about the Downtown eastside and this got him talking about his childhood growing up there. In the 15 minute ride Chuck told me all about himself and that he was in town from the Sunshine Coast visiting his ailing Aunt. Chuck has a degree in Zoology from UBC and shared with me some interesting stories and political beliefs. He may have looked like a tough biker but he turned out to be a really sweet guy. When I told him I was going for a bike ride he was incredibly kind and told me to be careful because the world would be at a lost if anything happened to me.

It goes to show that there are lots of beautiful souls out there who may look outside the box but are still really cool people. Keeping your eyes down on the bus prevents you from possibly meeting some of these interesting people. Perhaps it is time to unplug and smile at those around you.