On the bus

I'm sitting in a bus shelter waiting for the bus to Yerushalayim. The weather - this last week in October - is balmy, all warm and breezy. As I wait for the bus, I listen to women from Ethiopia chatting to one another in high voices that pour out a language that flows like bird-song.

At my bus-stop is a young woman wearing sandals with the fewest and finest possible silver straps required to hold the shoes to her feet. Her toenails are a deep red. Her feet glow like jewellery.

When the bus arrives, the driver is a young man with slicked back hair, but he's not impatient. On the seat across from me is a man wearing a kippah serugah and a Pink Floyd t-shirt, working on sheets of math problems. Behind me, a middle aged woman from Russia with long thick hair is wearing enormous chandelier earrings. In front of me, a woman answers her cell phone. "Mazal tov!" she cries "What did she have? Oh, this is achlah for you! Bye, Mami! Mazal tov!" We pass a bus-stop where a woman is dressed in ordinary modest clothing - she wears grey and black, her clothes are clean and neat. She is reciting tehillim from a small book.

The views as we drive towards Yerushalayim are beautiful, rolling hills planted with row upon row of trees. This is an ordinary day, an ordinary bus ride. Ordinary and magical.