Commuting 12/29/09

Before he could take my measure, he rolled down the window and started screaming at me. 15 seconds prior, he had rolled his car into the crosswalk, blocking my way across the street as I walked to the morning bus stop. He didn’t like that I told him to move it, that I punctured his sense of self, that I caught him doing wrong.

He called me a little bitch. I’m 5 foot 8 inches tall. I’m 43 years old. My parents gave me a name that could not be diminutized so that no one could ever make me feel small. He did it again. You little bitch. He’s right about the bitch part, because a bitch catches you vulnerable and lets you know it. A bitch looks at your anger and laughs at you. A bitch isn’t scared of you and will look you straight in the face.

Also, a bitch has better things to do than to bother much with you at all. Today there is fog rolling under the bridge, the bare boat masts are rocking in the harbor, flags are half mast along the pier. On the city streets I smile up at the sky. Here, it’s laced with wires for the trams, birds are wheeling and scavenging, and beyond all that is the pale lemon disc of winter sun.