The other day I came across a baby on the bus. I was heading back to the City Center after watching… Puss in Boots 2, I believe. Incredible movie, would recommend it to anyone and everyone. The animation, the emotional beats, a truly frightening antagonist… oof.
But I digress.
This piece isn’t about the Stabby Tabby.
It’s a piece prompted by seeing a particularly cute and oh-so-cheerful baby on the bus.
The baby wasn’t doing anything particularly special. She wasn’t rattling off names of dinosaurs off the top of her tiny head. She wasn’t reading the newspaper out loud, she wasn’t even coherent with her barely audible bubbly voice. I daresay she could barely say the names of her parents.
She was so… ordinary. Cute, yes. Lovely blue eyes, also true. But just an ordinary baby in pink.
What really hit me was how… such mundanity was being celebrated between mother and daughter. Every laugh. Every movement. Every time she pointed towards something only her twinkling eyes could see, she had an audience cheering her on. Each small instance being celebrated led to countless other moments; sprinkling little bits of joviality on an otherwise dreary bus ride.
No matter how banal the actual incident was, to the baby, it must’ve felt like she conquered the world.
After all, why wouldn’t it? Isn’t it feasible to think that a baby would feel that way when an entire bus packed with people gearing up to start their day, momentarily stop the maelstrom of thoughts in their heads… to stare at something that has absolutely no connection to them? They drop everything they’re doing to watch something that just… exists. They stop texting, they stop staring out the window, they shush their conversations; all to gaze at a baby marveling at the wonder of her surroundings.
What makes us feel this way?
What magnetic qualities does a baby possess to enrapture us so?
Is it their innocence that charms us? Do we, after losing our naivete as a consequence of tasting a minuscule amount of what the world has to offer, sadly remember when every sign of motion around us was a thing of beauty? The part of us that’s held captive by a baby’s actions; is that the same part that longs for a return to simpler times?
Is there a small voice within us longing to find the same joy around us, akin to what we see happen beautifully in front of us? After all, we did possess that at some point in our past. Mayhaps someday we’ll be able to find that same joy while also gaining an inkling of worldly knowledge. After all, ignorance is bliss doesn’t always have to be true.
What about the mother, in this instance?
There’s no doubt that every sense of the mother was focused intently on her blood in front of her, trying to understand what she was seeing, what she was hearing, what she was feeling. Whenever her child smiled, she smiled. The mother saw whatever the baby was pointing towards, and understood.
For of course she did.
I do believe the baby’s emotions were… amplified upon realizing that she had a witness, carefully watching her every move. Every experience must have felt even more of an accomplishment than it already was, all because there was someone to share it with. Every time the mother clapped or expressed appreciation, the baby’s eyes sparkled just a bit more.
Because someone was watching, someone who cared selflessly.
Anyway.
Why’d I write this, again? I didn’t really think I’d be hit by a flash of inspiration after witnessing a rather common situation but hey, the muse arrives at its own whims.
