30th April 2012 Dancing In The Street

It's a wonderfully mild and sunny day after almost 2 weeks of quite unstable weather. The air is fresh and clean and the street where I walk past every morning to my regular coffee shop is extra beautiful with tiny pink flower, but hundreds of them, on every tree both sides of the street, almost too picture pretty to be real. A young woman, early twenty I guess, is dancing, all by herself, in the middle of the street, smiling at people who looked at her with wonder, suspicion, and probably thought her crazy but, she just carried on dancing getting more and more energetic, and occasionally waved to a couple of them and to the children who stared or laughed out loud.

 

It's curious that when one shows carefree sentiment and happy spirit in public, it provokes disapproval and mockery, whereas walking with head down, indifferent to the gorgeous sunny day, sad face or void of any expression is accepted as normal. Nothing is more obvious if you look around not just in the street, but in a bus, train, underground, plane or boat, how many happy faces do you see? Most look tired, bored, sad, listless, cheerless or resigned, as if life is dreary and unbearable. But that seems normal and nobody would give it a thought why the fellow passengers are all so unhappy.

 

I don't know whether it happened to some of you, but I do sometimes feel just like that girl, suddenly with a strong desire to dance about just because I feel happy, elated and cheerful, simply because it's a great day, or about an extra happy memory or anticipation. I wish I had the courage to do as that girl, but I am ashamed to admit I have not yet trained myself to totally disregard what's generally classified as conduct unbecoming. I am getting better though, worried less and less what's other people's opinion of me.

 

I might get to that some day, dancing in the street, hug a stranger, kiss an old lonely man sitting on a park bench ... I had already shaken hands with a street cleaner once, because he called me from behind to tell me that I had dropped one of my gloves. I thanked him and we exchange a couple of words about the weather, then he complimented my Spanish. We ended up shaking hands before parting, and I felt good. I saw him again a few times and we always say a few words about nothing in particular. I feel good about that too. 

 

Tags: dancing, hugging, kissing

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