Saturday 24 January 2009

He's the greatest dancer

I got on the train yesterday morning at North Dulwich, as I do most working mornings, and there was a man standing up in the lobby, in front of the double doors. There were plenty of free seats, but he was happy to stand. This was because he was very much occupied in having a dance. 

Wrapped in the loving embrace of his headphones, he was quite oblivious to his fellow commuters. Like a whiter, fatter, only slightly less flamboyant member of Sister Sledge, he was caught in a trap, no turning back. It would not strictly be true to say that this was his 9 to 5, since we were on the 8.39,  and he was quite obviously already in business. But had I asked him how he was feeling, I sense very strongly that 'so alive' would have been the response. 

So there he was, swinging his well-covered man hips from side to side, flexing and bouncing, nodding his head, rolling his neck, turning through 90 degrees at regular intervals, covering all points of his makeshift dancefloor. I didn't know where to put my eyes, so I stopped worrying about it, and just put them on him. He didn't seem to mind.

He got off at Queens Road Peckham, and just before the train stopped to let him off, he was joined by a friend who had been sitting down. They chatted away amiably before getting off and walking away down the platform together. Presumably when they'd got on, at some station further south than mine, the dancer had said to his friend, 'No, it's alright, mate. You sit down. I've just got some moves I need to work through before we get there.' I wish I could always make use of my commuting time so expressively.

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