You can dance if you want to
Oct. 23rd, 2008 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage."
- Thucydides
This morning's commute was like any other morning commute. I boarded the Metro with the rest of the bleary-eyed workaday stiffs and leaned up against the plexiglas partition with my mp3 player and my Newsweek magazine. It's all part of my daily ritual, right down to where I stand at which door and in which car, so that there is a minimum of passenger congestion and so that I can walk right off the train and onto the appropriate escalator. The motions are so rote and embedded within my muscle memory that I could probably sleepwalk it, and on many days it feels like I'm doing just that.
Everything was typical on the eastbound Blue Line when I boarded at Pentagon City and until we got to Rosslyn. Then a young man stepped aboard.
I think he was young, but I can't be sure. He was dressed youthfully, casually, with exceptionally roomy jeans and a stylish satin jacket. And he had a starch-stiff black 5950 baseball cap pulled so far down on his brow that he looked a little like a duck. He was African-American, which may be relevant, from a sociological perspective, or may not, I'm not sure.
Anyway, he acted like any other 9 a.m. commuter for a few moments, and then it was as if someone flipped a switch. He started dancing. Slowly, at first, something bigger than a sway but smaller than a swing. If he was listening to a personal stereo of some kind, I couldn't see it. Gradually, his motions built to an sustained crescendo, complete with elaborate footwork, pelvic thrusting and full-fledged ass-shaking; I think I saw elements of the Watusi. He became a whirling dervish, confined to a three-foot radius. And one stop later, at Foggy Bottom, he disembarked, perhaps to see a George Washington University doctor about RLS.
Overall, I would give his performance high marks for enthusiasm and commitment, though I felt his movements could have been more fluid and rhythmic. His routine combined the primal insouciance of folk dance with the easy bravado of contemporary hip-hop.
The passengers around him, particularly those in closest proximity, looked at him with a combination of disdain and fear. Some of these people had perhaps a legitimate concern that they would be inadvertenty pelvic-thrusted, but from what I saw he was relatively controlled and did not touch anyone. It is of course natural to look askance at anyone who is behaving outside of the traditionally accepted societal norms, but I think this was something deeper.
I think the people on that train -- me included -- resented not only his cavalier disruption of our routine but his total rejection of it. For those three minutes, he transcended our pathetic, miserable community of office drones. And how dare he.
But then I thought to myself, if this young man -- with all the challenges we face in the world today (economic collapse, military annihilation, the Wayans brothers) -- can find the strength and the energy and the freedom to dance? Well then, bless his soul. I admire it. Especially at 8:30 a.m.
Sometime this weekend, try to take three minutes to dance. Or if you're too shy, just close your eyes and enjoy a song. And if you don't have a song, make one. Life is too short to just stand there on your commute.
- Thucydides
This morning's commute was like any other morning commute. I boarded the Metro with the rest of the bleary-eyed workaday stiffs and leaned up against the plexiglas partition with my mp3 player and my Newsweek magazine. It's all part of my daily ritual, right down to where I stand at which door and in which car, so that there is a minimum of passenger congestion and so that I can walk right off the train and onto the appropriate escalator. The motions are so rote and embedded within my muscle memory that I could probably sleepwalk it, and on many days it feels like I'm doing just that.
Everything was typical on the eastbound Blue Line when I boarded at Pentagon City and until we got to Rosslyn. Then a young man stepped aboard.
I think he was young, but I can't be sure. He was dressed youthfully, casually, with exceptionally roomy jeans and a stylish satin jacket. And he had a starch-stiff black 5950 baseball cap pulled so far down on his brow that he looked a little like a duck. He was African-American, which may be relevant, from a sociological perspective, or may not, I'm not sure.
Anyway, he acted like any other 9 a.m. commuter for a few moments, and then it was as if someone flipped a switch. He started dancing. Slowly, at first, something bigger than a sway but smaller than a swing. If he was listening to a personal stereo of some kind, I couldn't see it. Gradually, his motions built to an sustained crescendo, complete with elaborate footwork, pelvic thrusting and full-fledged ass-shaking; I think I saw elements of the Watusi. He became a whirling dervish, confined to a three-foot radius. And one stop later, at Foggy Bottom, he disembarked, perhaps to see a George Washington University doctor about RLS.
Overall, I would give his performance high marks for enthusiasm and commitment, though I felt his movements could have been more fluid and rhythmic. His routine combined the primal insouciance of folk dance with the easy bravado of contemporary hip-hop.
The passengers around him, particularly those in closest proximity, looked at him with a combination of disdain and fear. Some of these people had perhaps a legitimate concern that they would be inadvertenty pelvic-thrusted, but from what I saw he was relatively controlled and did not touch anyone. It is of course natural to look askance at anyone who is behaving outside of the traditionally accepted societal norms, but I think this was something deeper.
I think the people on that train -- me included -- resented not only his cavalier disruption of our routine but his total rejection of it. For those three minutes, he transcended our pathetic, miserable community of office drones. And how dare he.
But then I thought to myself, if this young man -- with all the challenges we face in the world today (economic collapse, military annihilation, the Wayans brothers) -- can find the strength and the energy and the freedom to dance? Well then, bless his soul. I admire it. Especially at 8:30 a.m.
Sometime this weekend, try to take three minutes to dance. Or if you're too shy, just close your eyes and enjoy a song. And if you don't have a song, make one. Life is too short to just stand there on your commute.
