Why I love a ride.

Especially rides with my dad. I love them because apart from crashes, nothing bad has ever happened during a ride with my dad.

I can do what I want there. A ride with mom, I need to talk. If I don't, then surely there's something wrong. "Are you being bullied?", "Do you feel well?" or even better  "What's wrong with you today? Why aren't you nice to me?"

If I don't talk, it's usually because I think. You can't think deeply and have meaningful conversation at the same time.

And conversation with my dad is like guaranteed to be interesting. He might tell me the history of computers, his latest gadget, tell me a story about his past, about people he'su known, knows or even doesn't know, we might talk politics.

We don't need to be serious. We can swap jokes, talk movies, music, dancing, books.

My father has the art of explaining things to me in a way that I understand. Or perhaps it's me who has learned to understand what he means, over time.

But the thing I'll be eternally grateful for, is that whenever I asked 'why' (I still ask that very often about a variety of things, by the way) he would never just answer me 'because' or 'ask your mom' or 'ask your teacher' or 'how would I know?'. Whatever the question. I asked many bizarre things over the years, I always got answers. "Why do we have shoulderblades?" "Why do pears taste like pears?" "Who decides where the borders lie?" "What is war?" And even this very painful one, for him and for me, later on (when I realised), asked by me at a dinner party after I'd overheard a lewd joke: "What is a condom?"

Ah, sweet innocent times...


PS: Do forgive me, I'm on nostalgia tour tonight. If you imperatively need to reach me, you might want to look ten years ago.