Dancing in the Rain

Walking around the block from the office where I work is made less hazardous (in the London traffic sense) by there being a high level public walkway across a busy street, accessed by steps very near to The Monument (to the Great Fire of London), and a route that takes one over a public access terrace of the old Clarkson’s building.

As I walked off some emotions, I discovered groups of teenagers, dressed in hip-hop fashion, practicing dance moves in the drizzle that was gently wetting that broad terrace overlooking the Thames.  The building’s windows that let onto the terrace all have a mirrored finish making it the ideal impromptu (free) studio.

Dancing in the rain on a terrace above the Thames, right beside London Bridge.

View from the terrace....that's Tower Bridge (London Bridge is behind my right shoulder)

You have to admire their creativity, expression, and the athleticism of youth as they interpreted their music (which wasn’t playing loudly) and for a moment I was distracted, happy for them and contented for myself.

It was only after I had returned to the office that I dug up the desire to have approached and said to them – “I am old, a lot less flexible, and a lot more inhibited, but can you teach me something I can take away from here, something to keep in my heart.”

I found myself hearing an internal beat of a TV advert for a brand of fresh chewing gum, that has a middle-aged guy bopping out of a lift and down an escalator much to the bemusement of his colleagues.  Goodness knows what the brand is, but the bop beat I feel.

Maybe they will be there again next week, maybe I will have the courage to ask.