The sound of rain on the bus window was the best background music you ever had. You just didn’t know it yet.

Background you never chose turns out to be the part you keep. Rain on a window during a long dull ride was not an experience you were having on purpose, which is exactly why it got stored whole, with the cold and the fogged glass and nowhere to be. Comfort like that only exists when nothing is being asked of you. You cannot arrange it, but you can be awake for it.

Spend one ride this week with nothing playing and nothing to read. Watch the weather out of the window. It will feel like a waste for the first few minutes, and then it will not.