I went back to bus driving in mid-February for just a few weeks- perhaps not even 2 whole weeks. The kids were so happy to see me and I them. It is such a simple thing to drive a bus full of kids. Bus driving was a step away for me from my office world as an acupuncturist – healer. I loved doing something so simple and creating a relationship with 47 kids that is completely contrary to the rest of their experience with life.
They are middle-schoolers with all the changing, explosive energy that pre-adolescence can conjure. They spend there days being barked at by teachers and parents. They are constantly shuffled in hordes and ordered around while desperately testing new boundaries, learning to manage new relationships, discovering new body functions and feelings, and establishing their place in the tribe of middle schoolers.
On my bus, I established a relationship with them that took a while for them to trust. I respected them, gave them space to express themselves and teach them kindness. Every afternoon we had a party. Every morning started out slow and quiet until they woke for school. They were wild in the beginning and I had to reign them in. But they were given a chance to show up in lots of ways – including dancing, singing, the daily arguments, territorializing (not really a word) and more. Ours became the bus everyone else wanted to ride. I couldn’t wait to get to work every morning.
Getting to know each one individually, even though I only saw them an hour a day total, gave me a chance to appreciate all that they have to go through and manage. They are caught between being children and transitioning into teenagers. They were fighting their innocence while not wanting to give it up; establishing hierarchies while resenting the leaders, testing every aspect of life while being contained by the rules.
I gave them surprises- simple ones- to help them see that life isn’t always about the rules. One time I lined them all up in the cafeteria while the teachers looked on approvingly. I got them all quiet just as they were accustomed to the rules of adults. I stood at the door, slowly opened it and said, “RUN!” as I raced them to the bus. The chaos and freedom shocked and excited them and me. We all broke the rules together! The teachers simply stood with their mouths open. It was a precious moment as my kids breathlessly hopped up the steps looking at my grinning face and rewarded me with a smile.
I just wanted them to know that sometimes it’s okay to break the rules and that there was one adult who knew that the world wouldn’t end if they did. I wanted them to get that there was one adult who understood the urges to bust out every now and then and that play and joy were good things. I wanted them to know that somebody understood them from the inside out.
Maybe I was just projecting my own frustration with all the restrictions and boundaries and rules that govern my own adult life onto them. I like to think, however, that one day, when one of them gets caught up in the conventions and social rules that we have established while everything in them is screaming to do something fun, crazy and harmless, that they remember some of their bus moments way back in middle school- that they remember the exhilaration of a moment when all the rules got broken and nobody got hurt. Then maybe they will be inspired to laugh out loud in the elevator, dance down the office steps, hand out candy on a whim, take a day off of work and their kid out of school and roam around in the woods- JUST BUST OUT!
That last week in February, after being so happy to be driving again, something came over me and I knew that I could set it all aside. Whatever got me hooked in was played out and I knew I could finish out the year and be done with it. But I didn’t get to finish out the year. I barely finished out the month. That last week in February turned out to be my last bus ride. I was about to have another stroke.
