The Bus Ride

I used to ride the bus to work and wish that on the 20-minute Express, I could muster the courage to stir up an exciting collective debate, about politics, our community, current issues. Instead of opening a book or staring out the window, the newest rider would lean in and ask what we were talking about today.

This memory popped into my head in the recent days since my friend died. Our journey through life is like a bus ride. Some people get on when you're already in progress, and sometime later they get off; but in that ride you've been changed. You've participated in a rousing discussion, you've engaged in fearless dialogue, you've provoked the social experiment that lies in you and everyone waiting to play with you if you're courageous enough to just play. You've utilized those spare 20 minutes. For good! And learned something you never knew about yourself and the person next to you and the person next to that one. And before you know it, all those 20 minutes are stacked into days and weeks, a lifetime; and the bus door opens, and a passenger waves goodbye, and he gets off at his stop, while the buzz he stirred in your bus continues, and your journey, continues.