Bioluminescent Algae and a Purse Made of Underpants

I love bus stops. They are the ideal place for people watching and sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll manage to start up a conversation.

Talking with strangers, it’s kind of my thing. I think it might have to do with my spectacularly oppositional nature. Tell me not to do something, and seconds later there I am, doing that thing you just told me not to do. It used to drive my mother up the wall. I’d never sit for pictures because it was “required”. I couldn’t pee on command, especially next to the side of the road on a road-trip, and my mother would retell the story about my amazing sixteen hour iron-bladder, but it just turned out I was blessed (and I do say blessed) with a condition called oppositional defiance disorder. It sounds cool, but what it meant for me in my life, is that I couldn’t do the things people wanted from me, and when they told me not to do something...well you get the picture. Why is it a disorder? Aren’t you just stubborn, I hear you asking? Well yes, and no. Some of the things people wanted me to do...I also wanted to do them, desperately. Like swimming, I was so excited about swimming but it was absolutely REQUIRED at school, and so I just couldn’t do it. I look back on all the things I couldn’t learn because they were mandatory, and no one knew how to teach a kid with ODD when I was young.

I learned eventually, that reading and stories were the way I learned, because it allowed me to glean information without advice, or instructions, or direction. That’s probably another reason I love talking with strangers. I learn so so much from them.

That day at the bus stop. It felt different. I was wearing this hilarious purse my friend Cami had made for me. I refused to wear a purse until my early twenties because folks told me girls HAD to wear purses, and well...not really being a girl (I’m what you’d call non-binary now but then folks just called me tom-boy) plus being oppositional and I ended up just wearing a jean jacket and keeping what I needed in my pockets...and never, ever taking off my jacket. Apparently that frustrated people, including Cami’s boyfriend Matt (who used to be my boyfriend, but he was a better fit for her, and I would never have gotten to be such good friends with her if it hadn’t been for Matt!) who had tried to make me wear a purse our entire relationship. He didn’t like that I made people uncomfortable by never taking my jacket off at parties. When Cami and I met, she joked about my jean-jacket thing, and said she bet she could make me a purse that would change my mind. Cami was a talented seamstress and a couple years into our friendship she presented me with this gorgeous, hand-made, red bag with a hilarious cow patch on it, and I loved it. She insisted I didn’t have to wear it, and it became one of my favourite things ever. Cami got me. She never told me what to do, or gave me advice. She just made me laugh with her anecdotes and her never wiping her face when she’d eat licorice ice cream. She loved when people would get awkward and try to tell her subtly to wipe her face. I could watch her pull that joke over and over. Our friendship developed over the course of years, and pretty soon she and Matt weren’t dating anymore but we were best friends and she was still making me purses because I wouldn‘t wear anyone else’s.

So that day at the bus stop I was wearing her new hilarious creation; a purse made from a pair of tighty-whitey (dyed purple and never used) underwear.

Was the purse slightly embarrassing to wear? Yes. Did it get a thousands comments from strangers daily? Yes. Did I love the odd attention? Absolutely. I thrive on eccentric ice-breakers.

The bus stop was packed, this particular day, and I was hoping to go downtown to meet Cami. I was watching a young mother attempting to get her small child back in the stroller with a great amount of difficulty, and was about to go help using the distraction technique I had developed over years of caring for children, and nannying, when I was distracted from my plans by a handsome...pretty...person about my age. They looked right at my purse, and asked if I’d made it. Don’t talk to strangers? I had to answer.

It was the perfect intro. I’m not often taken by people at first site, but I was already made comfortable by the outward gender ambiguity of the person who’d approached me. I‘ almost always more comfortable around folks who buck gender convention, because it means less explaining about my own self, generally, and more commiserating and celebrating.

I responded the way I normally respond to queries about me having made the purses I wore. Not me, I said cheerfully! I don’t swim, or sew! The person looked a little disappointed, but I quickly went on to tell them about Cami, and her wonderful skills.

They seemed taken by my exuberance about my friend. I loved telling people about her. The bus arrived and I indicated that I had to get in it. I could see, in that moment, this adorable new human making a decision.

Do you mind if I accompany you? They asked. Mind?! I said, I’d welcome it. So that is how my underwear purse and I found ourselves sitting next to this fascinating human who was also full of stories.

Their name, it turned out, was Sam, and they were thoughtful, and kind. They shared a story about the sandwich shop they worked at. They’d noticed all the sandwiches being thrown out at the end of the day. Instead of letting that happen they started a small ad-hoc organization of local folks who would go and collect the food after the end of the day at the cafes in that neighbourhood and spend a couple hours redistributing them to the houseless folks in the neigbourhood. I liked Sam. Immediately.

Sam asked me, rather shyly for someone who’d been the one to approach me, if I’d like to accompany them to the beach, the last stop this bus had. Now this was before cell phones, and so I couldn’t text Cami to let her know what was going on. But I knew she would co-sign this. I hadn’t dated since Matt, and just the idea that I was meeting someone I was attracted to, and who tickled my brain and made me feel comfortable (and deliciously uncomfortable), it was thrilling.

I agreed, and asked if we could stop by a pay phone before we hit the beach and invite my friend Cami. Sam agreed so genuinely excited to meet the famed-purse maker that I knew I’d made the right decision.

We got off the bus, and as I stood up, our hands sort of, inadvertently touched, and I tingled! TINGLED! My eyes just rolled back into my head just now thinking about that that first delicious experience. Sam grinned at me, maybe having sensed the electricity too.

We found a phone-booth, they were plentiful then, though a few months later they started removing them, much to my dismay, and I dialed Cami.

She picked up and I excitedly regaled her with the bus stop events and she hung up so quickly to come meet us I knew I only had a few more moments alone with Sam.

We were walking to the beach and I looked at them, and I just said it. I like you, Sam. They smiled, goofily, and admitted to having been so grateful they’d got up the courage to ask me about the purse.

It was starting to get dark, and Sam wandered towards the water, and took of their socks and rolled up their pants, and dragged their foot across the surface of the water...and like magic, a glowing streak appeared where their foot left.

I looked at them open-mouthed, and wide-eyed. Okay, that’s it, I said. You are magic. Faerie, perhaps? They bit their lip and half-smirked. I wish, they replied. It’s bioluminescence. Having a broad vocabulary I decoded the science immediately. Living lights?! What?! No way. Yes, way, they responded. Bioluminescent algae. They motioned for me to come into the water. I hesitated, not being the swimming sort.

I‘ll hold you, they said. And I realized that no one had offered me that, in my life of dodging swimming lessons. I felt this incredible trust in Sam. I couldn’t explain it.

I walked slowly into the ocean, the water lighting up all around me until we were so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom, and Sam held me while my breath caught in awe.

Cami’s voice stirred me from my revery.

I looked up to see the smirking face of my best friend looking like she knew that all of this was meant to happen.

She picked up the purse I’d put on the beach in triumph, as if to say, all these little things led to this moment, and aren’t you glad I made you this ridiculous purse. I looked away from her, and at Sam, and lit by the living lights, we just breathed together.