A few years ago, when I first noticed younger people offering me their seats on public transport, I would shake my head and hands furiously and say, “no thank you”. Lately, when offered a seat, I smile sweetly and take it immediately. I don’t care if there are more deserving people on the bus. I barge past them and sit on the throne offered. Then like everyone else on the bus, I open my phone and inhale its content, slack jawed and vacant eye’d.
People on the buses are fascinating.
My favourite seat is the one at the front, on the upper deck. I love the views and there’s extra space for my bags, and there’s an unwritten rule that you’re not here to chat or make friends, but simply to enjoy the ride.
I try to avoid the back seat on the upper desk, as that’s where all the mischief makers head. The back seat on the upper deck, is where groups of unruly youths go to vape and play their music loudly, and cause trouble. They’ll scream and laugh and be a nuisance.
The downstairs back seat row is more subdued. This is a cave of safety where the serious gather. It’s here you’ll see people reading books or listening to self-help podcasts. The downstairs front area, meanwhile, is an eclectic mix of older people, tourists and drug users.
The tourists can be further divided into those wearing decent rain gear and those who don’t know where they are, or where they’re going. Some of them put their suitcases in the carriage near the driver and then regret this decision bitterly. They ask everyone, many times, where O’Connell Street is, and they look both scared and disappointed. They seem aghast at the weather, prices and lack of glamour, and they seem so wildly unimpressed, you wonder what they’d hoped for.
Dublin bus drivers are the most patient drivers in the whole world.
They are tourist guides, agony aunts, mediators, healers and they bestow sacred rites. I love to hear their responses to some questions, including “do you accept dollars,” “is this the way to Belfast” and “do you know my cousin John?” I love watching two bus drivers stop their vehicles on opposite sides of the street, just to say hello, or, how’s it going? I always say, “good morning” and “thank you” to the drivers, and sometimes I wave when I leave.
Nowadays, people enjoy having full blown conversations on their mobiles, on the buses, and they don’t mind who listens in. Sometimes the conversations are incredibly personal or scrappy or illegal. Sometimes, more than one person is on the phone, almost screaming down the line: and like a bar after 8.00pm the noise gets exponentially higher and higher.
Eventually, one of them yells, “I’ll call you back later, I can’t hear myself think on this bus”.
When did we, as a species, learn not to be alone with our thoughts for more than 17 seconds at a time?
I feel like it happened lately, but perhaps I’m wrong.
Like children in the nursery, we need the constant reassurance, company, approval and entertainment of the ever-fixed blue light, and that sense of comfort that scrolling gives to us. Rock us silently to sleep, friendly phone, remove our discomfort, boredom and stress, help us manage the pain.
Beep, beep, ping, ping.
A place for all the thoughts of all the people, all the time. A magic hat of all the feelings and all the facts and all the fights. A goldfish bowl of stale cold water, with bits of rotten dead fish fins in them.
A mirror, a window, a light, an overfilled bin.
In time, the daisies in the garden are not entitled.
They stand, in these weeks protecting those we can’t see, from the wind and rain. Their petals so soft to the touch. They remind you of a satin edged blanket, that comforted your chin, in your childhood bed. Or the forehead of a puppy from a farm, you can’t remember the name of just now. But strangely, the sounds from the horseshoes in the stable, has come to you.
Hay smells of summertime.
And when you wake and sleep at light time, while other street noises continue, you have the sense of being watched over.
Minded by the daisies.
The bicycle wheel white petals are also Flamenco dancers, in part, with wild arms flaying to music. Or sleeves on silk dresses. Their tiny yellow heads, move, and like lighthouses for the snails and slugs, or umbrellas for the hotter days.
Exhausted from their journeys through the dark earth and clay, until finally they sing, “hello, we are here”.
Unordered, delightful daisies, swaying in the back yard for us and for them.
Shorter than me 