Upon the bus ride that new day, the clouds blossomed pink as if in visual empathy with the poppy red paint below.
Riding in that double decker, cherry red to complement the rosy sunrise, the Thames was a great and meditative view.
We would climb the spiral staircase to the top deck and rush to the seats at the front. In our hands was our imaginary wheel and we drove that routemaster through the London streets. We may have been kids, but we riding high, grins broader than the Thames.
Upon the bus ride, rocked as if we were in a great silver cradle, there is a sense of tranquil togetherness.
The bus ride with Liv is my favourite time of the day all year round. Yet, at this time if year we travel in the golden hour, when the sunlight is just right, soft and warm. It is as if we are the protagonists of some classic movie, the lovers riding along, unaware of the heroes they will become.
The bus ride is my meditation. The same chill music in my earbuds, the same view passing as a beloved and rewatched movie.
We ride this silver cocoon over the earth, our eyes on the trees that grow in their infinite patience, leaves breathing out our oxygen, bathing in the same light as we soon will. I feel the movement of the wheels over the road, following the curves and greeting each slope in its smooth way. These bus rides are my meditation, a chance for my thoughts to greet the horizon, salute the clouds and ready my feet for the day ahead.
The bus rocks us from side to side as we travel these familiar roads, our brains afforded the time to daydream or rest. There are those who chatter, their voices rising and blending together in the sweet ritual of friends. Some absorb themselves in music, others drift into worries that will erase themselves on arrival, when their body rejoins the world of moving and speaking to others. And so it goes on that way, all of us together and separate, feeling all the same turns and bumps.
The bus is a clanker, yet under the faded yellow paint is a classic - the shape transporting me back to childhood. As it passes I barely see it at all, my mind painting a picture over the top, a picture of what it could be if it were restored. Call me nostalgic, but there was love in those old designs.