she just smiled

I find that I'm increasingly moved by the little things.

Perhaps that is a sign of aging, I mean maturity.

To get into city center to ride the ultra-convenient metro system of Taipei, I take bus number 255 each day, which is the same route on which I used to ride to get to grade school in 1982.  The differences between now and then:  there are electronic monitors and an easy card-swiping payment system now.  There is one other thing that I have noticed this trip, something which I cannot remember if existed 30 years ago - more often than not, people, both the young, the old, and those somewhere in between, say "謝謝" (meaning thank you) when they disembark.  And the driver would respond with "謝謝 (shieh shieh), thank you."  The final words may sound American, but the custom certainly isn't, at least not in my experience.

Yesterday while getting on 255, I was carrying a paper bag that held some food and a chilled bottle of water (it's more essential than American Express - I never leave home without it).  The bus driver said something to me which escaped me.  It's not that I was become senile and hard of hearing.  You know how it is - when you're not expecting something, your brain doesn't really register the information the first time around.  When she repeated herself most kindly, I realized she was warning me that there were holes in my bag, thanks to the condensation from the cold bottle.

I made my way to the back of the bus, thinking how nice the bus driver was and wondering why I stupidly used a paper bag.  I sat down next to a woman then began examining the bag to calculate the amount of time until the bag rips, based on the weight of the content, the temperature of the water against the air, and the density of the paper bag.

Seconds later, while I was lost in a world of numbers, functions, sines, and cosines, the woman next to me took out a plastic bag from her shopping cart and handed it to me without saying a word.  The fact that she did so without speaking to me moved me the most.  Note to self:  when writing a script, eliminate dialogue whenever possible.  I suspected that she was an immigrant worker, as she had a darker complexion and Taiwanese people tend to be wordy, particularly in such circumstances.  I said "謝謝," and she simply smiled.

So I just smiled back.