I had occasion to talk to a bus driver the other day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Ray collects Elena from school and I slum it on public transport (actually it's not bad at all now they've rebuilt the bus station).
I'd just caught it before it pulled away. It was full and I had to stand, right at the front since I was the last one on. On my way out of the office I'd taken a call on the mobile that I couldn't make at work, and I was just finishing up. And the driver said to me, 'Look at you on your phone. Don't you have anything better to do?"
I have a soft spot for a)opportunities to explore people and situations I don't usually come across and b)for bus drivers in general. Rachel Simon's excellent Riding the Bus With My Sister (disregard the film) has opened my mind to find truths these always-opinionated guys might have observed.
We chatted. He has two teenage sons with Asperger's syndrome. He works eleven-hour days and still helps run a charity that takes disabled children for days at the seaside and such in the cabs of Big Trucks. And yes he was opinionated. But his opinions were in the right direction. I told him how good it was that his boys had a dad like him.
And then he said it. This middle-aged guy is the same age as me. My heart fell. There's no way I'm as old as he is. I started looking at myself differently in the mirror. Have I just been fooling myself, to think I'm younger than I am?
A few days later, I was washing up, but the girls wanted to play. Elena wanted to be a doctor, and insisted something was wrong with me. She was exploring my back and legs. And then it happened.
She found a spot where I'm still ticklish.
I'd assumed that I'd lost the surprise, that the fun had worn down. That I'd got too grown-up.
But I squirmed uncontrollably. I couldn't stand the touch. I laughed out loud.
Which the girls thought was hilarious.
And gave me a thrill.
I want to find more places where I'm ticklish - not just on my skin, but places in myself that make me laugh out loud, places to be in life where I'm relaxed enough to feel the things that touch me, even with my hands deep in dishwater. I want to be ready to play the game even when I'm busy. This is the person I want to be. Now and forever. Building up those laugh lines, so when I look in the mirror, when I'm an age that really is old, I will be glad, and will remember the fun I had getting them.
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