and Words
Is it fate or random chance
How can I decide
Are we victims of circumstance
When destinies collide
All the odds are against you
But somehow you make it through
You can rationalize it away
But it all comes down to you
Half our lives we spend waiting
For the knock upon the door
When it comes, will it be the one
That I’ve been waiting for
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
I first discovered Triumph after the release of their album Thunder Seven; it was released right in the middle of high school. Triumph is an exceptional band, among my favorites, in fact. They’re a little different from other bands in that they don’t seem to inspire the unreasonable, fanatical following that other bands develop. Van Halen, Rush, and Led Zeppelin had fanatical followers. ‘Their’ band was the superlative; any discussion to the contrary was heresy.
Right after graduating high school, Triumph released the album The Sport of Kings. I thoroughly enjoyed both albums, but Thunder Seven had a bit more cohesion. That said, this new album fit the bill perfectly for the start of my higher education. It melded into the soundtrack of my life. The energy and optimism of ‘Somebody’s Out There’ made it an instant favorite. It was the album’s top single. I occasionally wondered who would become my ‘somebody’.
I went to the concerts for both the Thunder Seven and The Sport of Kings tours. They put on a stellar show with a lot of pyrotechnics. However, all the fireworks don’t matter if the music sucks, and the music didn’t suck. I still remember those shows. I may even have a concert shirt tucked away somewhere.
On typical weekday mornings, my wife and I have a routine. We leave the house to start our day. We don’t play any music during the short drive, opting instead to chat while we start our day. I drop her off at the bus stop to catch the bus to Downtown Seattle. She often quips that, “Frank drops me off on the side of the freeway.” This assertion is both completely true and misleading; the bus stop happens to be on the on-ramp to the freeway. We both giggle about it. On her exceptionally early days, I’ll drop her off, come back home, and shower to start my day.
On clear days, you can see Mount Rainier from the bus stop. While it’s over sixty miles away as the crow flies, it’s still over 14 thousand feet tall. It’s truly majestic and a view that is easy to take for granted. Occasionally, the view surprises me, and I take a picture.
I pull just past the bus stop where there’s a shoulder; I unbuckle her seat belt since she’s handling her work bag. She checks the app on her phone that lists when the different routes arrive at that stop. She sits in the dry, warm (or cool) car, sheltered from the elements. She watches the times on OneBusAway and exits the car two minutes before the arrival. As she closes the car door, she announces, “See you later, alligator.” I text her a response from my phone: “After a while, crocodile.” With my response, I include an AI-generated picture of a golden retriever puppy playing with a toy crocodile. This is how I spend my CoPilot credits; I generate funny images with golden retriever puppies.
As I sit in our parked car on the shoulder, a paved walking path parallel to the freeway sits on the right. I’ve walked it years before with a friend while we wanted to get our steps in during a fitness challenge. Much like the views of Mount Rainier, I don’t notice it on most days.
If she forgot something, a mishap occurs, or something needs my attention, I don’t drive off until she is safely on the bus. I play music from my phone through the car speakers to pass the few minutes while I wait for the next drive. The moment she sets her foot on the bus, I’ll drive off to start my day. Sometimes I head to work immediately; occasionally, I return home to shower and start my day.
This is how it plays out on most days.
On Thursday, events transpired differently. She steps away from the car and walks to the bus stop shelter. I play music from a playlist I switched to that morning; this is the larger playlist with many more songs than my typical “Driving Tunes” car list. She refreshes the view in OneBusAway; it now reports a 7-minute wait for the bus. She texts me and instructs me to leave and start my day, which I ignore.
As the music plays in the car, Triumph’s ‘Somebody’s Out There’ plays on the speakers. As the music plays, I hear a tapping on the window that startles me. A woman walked up to the car and looked at me quizzically; this had never happened before. I rolled down the window, and she asked, “Are you okay?” I smiled and responded, “Yes, my wife is waiting for the bus behind us; I just want to make sure that she gets on safely.” She was satisfied with that answer and continued down the path parallel to the freeway.
My wife continues to text me. She explicitly asserts that I have her permission to leave, to which I still didn’t respond. I don’t want to give the impression that I willfully ignored her. My phone’s ‘do not disturb’ mode runs until 7 am, and this all transpired before that.
Rik Emmett’s voice continued to bellow the words to that song from so many years before:
Somebody’s out there, somewhere
I will somehow be somebody’s someone
Some day
In that moment, I reflect on those words that inspired the hope of finding someone so many years before. Only to realize that:
- That somebody is literally out there; I can see her in my rearview mirror.
- I’ve somehow become that somebody’s someone.
- That someday was decades ago, when we first met.
The bus finally arrives, and she boards that late bus. She texts me and thanks me for waiting. My response?
You’re precious cargo. I’m staying until you’re safely on.
And with that, I put the car in gear and drive home to shower and start my day.