Bus Rides

Almost 30-40 minutes of my school days are spent on the school bus. It’s one of my favorite moments of the day, especially because I love rides. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve gone on long drives with my parents. There was this clown poster on one of my favorite malls that I used to like, I used to call him joker dada. My parents would take me there almost every night when I was a toddler, when the city was quiet, and the world seemed to be asleep.

I’ve always loved to go on my school buses, even when I was younger. My school bus would pick me up from in front of my house every day, 7am on the dot. I used to love waiting at the stop, especially because one of my friends would also wait for her bus at the same place. We would be laughing and giggling in the morning, Mumbai being surprisingly still comparatively quiet. When my bus would come, my friends would be waiting for me, my designated seat beside the window already reserved. We had “assigned” seats, but every time the person besides me would be absent, one of my closest friends from the bus would sit next to me. Bus rides were one of my favorite school memories. The world outside looked so sunny, bustling as we hit the main road, everyone scrambling to go to work.

On the way back, we would always be talking about our day, laughing and eating the snacks we brought from home. There would be no competitions, drama or fights. All of us would twist around in our seats so that we could form a circle and face each other to talk. They were the best times, something I looked forward to each school day.

  Here, when I’m going to my high school now, in Redmond, I love watching the weather change through the window. As we slowly break out of winter, the sky gets lighter a little bit earlier, and the sunrise is a bright glow outside the bus. The bus is like a bubble around me, protecting me from the cold (negative Celsius) air outside me. The heaters are always on full blast in the bus during the winter, making me feel warm and cozy while admiring the chillness the birds are enduring outside. One of my favorite things to do is listen to songs in the bus, humming along as I try to capture and store the marvel of nature in my mind. It’s absolutely beautiful and serene, those mornings. I love how quiet it is, the first morning stragglers driving early to work.

After school, sometimes when my friends and I hangout, we go on one bus all together. Usually there are multiple buses that each of us go on, that take each of us to our own home. Though when we hang out, all of us pick one bus to go in, wherever we are hanging out that day. It’s always a blast because there are generally about 7 of us, and we occupy 4 or 5 seat benches (2 people on each) in one section of the bus. We talk and laugh, excited for our hangout and also glad that the bus driver was ok with carrying so many of us that don’t usually go on this bus.

I always change the playlist based on the weather and how I’m feeling that day. As spring approaches, the sky keeps getting vibrant, displaying its most beautiful sunrises as we drive past. There’s this field near my school that we pass everyday to and from our stop. It’s a huge field filled with grass, changing colors from fresh bright green in the spring to yellow in the fall. There’s one lone tree standing defiantly in the middle of all that grass. I love watching it grow leaves and flowers in the spring, be large and healthy during the summer, change colors during the fall and shed leaves by winter. The snow that gathers on the branches makes my heart melt every time. There’s a pond near that tree, that shows the most perfect reflection of the bright blue sky and grass in the summer, and which gets the most delicate and thin layer of ice on it during the snowy season. That field is an indication of the seasons, and I love watching the tree, admiring its resilience of standing alone amid all that grass.

There was never a reason I could place on why I liked bus rides. I always thought it was the friends and memories I made with them in India. While that was one of the starting causes, it’s different here. There’s a calmness that washes over me each time we take our path towards my school. It’s an indication of time flying by and the seasons changing. I watch a little bit of change in the nature surrounding me every day, and it validates the fact that I can persevere through change too, just like that tree in the field.

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