We board, stow bags, adjust devices or open reading materials. We chat with or nod to fellow passengers, watch from the windows or drowse after a long work day.
On buses, planes, trains or ships, we are connected by vehicle, by departure and destination.
In sports stadiums, once upon a time, there was only the sound of the crowd murmuring or the crack of a bat. The whoosh of a football perfectly thrown or a puck perfectly passed. A punch perfectly aimed.
On the bus, plane or train, there is still the settling in murmur and buzz. In the sports stadiums, all sense of community has been abandoned in favor of obedience to the scoreboard messages and sideline performances of manic cheer kids, racing mascots and flying T-shirts and hot dogs.
I like the quiet murmurs of going home because it means the constant chatter of the brain -- the hum and buzz of the mind guiding us through the day -- goes briefly quiet.
Getting outside is another way to quiet the chatter inside.
I snappe
d this picture of the Mellon Square fountain steps today (Omni William Penn in the background) on the way to buying bus tickets at Port Authority's Smithfield Street center. If proposed cuts go through, I'll have one less vehicle on which to savor community and solitude.But the daily walk will still be there, and I am looking forward to seeing this space restored. A truly great mid-century design in Pittsburgh, Mellon Square, is getting a face-lift. At the one-minute mark of this video, you can see the steps as they appeared in the 1950s, when the park opened. The narration notes that little remains of original plantings. That's true of other Pittsburgh Renaissance projects, including some of the Gateway Center spaces. (That's fodder for another day.)
My mom & I stayed at this hotel way back in 1980 or so, when I had been hired for my first job in Pittsburgh. Mom came with me to help me look for an apartment.
We both remember there was a lot of chatter in the room next door.
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