Sitting in traffic this morning. Going nowhere fast. The car adjacent, big, white BMW, the driver, elegant, hair styled, suit pressed and clearly ready for work and business battles (the office, meetings, who knows), perhaps they are a super-hero in disguise? The kids and I are fascinated as this individual proceeds to insert index finger in left nostril, ferret around until acquiring the target and with less than surgical precision, but effective firking nonetheless, the bogey was detected, detained and after careful pensive assessment devoured.
At the point when it was being rolled between thumb and forefinger, the children and I knew what was coming next and like the knowing but silent audience to Brad Pitt at the denouement in 7, just prior to opening the 'box', we knew what was coming next. Laughing and shouting 'don't do it', well, all but one of us was shouting that. Is it not hilarious that this individual felt so protected from the outside world to the point of invisibility that perhaps they considered they were in Wonder Woman's plane?
The traffic shuffled forwards on slug-like tracks and we pull up next to what the children call a 'Dinky' (Latin name Fiat 500 - Cinquecento or is that something else) and it's middle-aged occupant is clearly auditioning as a stand in for Milli Vanilli. We stayed parallel with the car for almost two to three minutes, perhaps almost the whole song. Not once did the driver look left or right, or even in the mirror. Clearly they were at one with the tune, in harmony with themselves and once again safe and secure in their environment. Belting it out they were, from their mouth movements it looked like 'Fat Bottomed Girls'.
An hour earlier I'd been in the shower just before the children got up, Radio 2 in the background and I started signing to myself perhaps a little too loudly. The knock on the door was a little unexpected, as was the little voice which followed it, 'Stop singing its awful'. Saturated by the sound of the shower, fenced behind walls and doors of glass in a room of quiet contemplation and privacy, I was reminded of my own moment where for a tiny fragment of time I didn't care about what anyone thought of me beyond the bathroom. Cliché perhaps but the slogan many have as artwork on their walls about 'Dancing Like No-one is Watching', does it not hold a nugget of truth?
I'm content, observing those people enjoy their element of personal bliss without judgement, just them being their basic selves, doing what they want to do, in the moment, not bothering about what others think of them. Once out of those glass. metal or brick cocoons we place ourselves in, watch how our behaviour changes. The executive in their suit wouldn't pick their nose in front of their colleagues, the office worker wouldn't be out singing Queen to everyone they greet. So I get to thinking, are we not all children at heart and how rarely we show it. I've been to school plays and yes, there's nerves but the children geuinely seem to enjoy being on stage, not judged just adored by their parents, grandparents and friends, even on 'display', because of the positivity those children feel safe. So when does it change? Perhaps those teenage years, the point when we become less secure about ourselves? What point do we start becoming so concerned about what everyone else thinks of us? Why? Scared to make ourselves vulnerable, fearful of what others might think of us? Unless we are in a safe place... we know at age nine our parents think we are great and so we get up on stage, we know when we are in the shower or car alone no-one is there in proximity to judge us. Perhaps what we should aim to do is look at it from a different perspective and remain inside Wonder Woman's plane; instead of worried about the opinions of others, why don't we simply try to love what we do, admire who we are and not worry about the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' (thanks William) and fickle thoughts. May be less judgement might mean more harmony. Who am I to say, I'm no peace-broker. Nevertheless, 'You make the rockin' world go 'round ...'