Something weird happened today. Almost like an epiphany.
I was racing through Cardiff to get Richard back to work on time, when it began to rain. I was far too lazy to put my jacket on and so instead allowed my white vest top to get soaked. Only five minutes later did it occur to me why those builders were leering at me. Oh, well.
We said our goodbyes and I continued to race to the make-shift temporary tunnel for pedestrians, for some shelter. As I entered the tunnel, my Primark brown paper bag fell apart in my hand. It became all mushy and tore, revealing all my purchases (new shirts for work).
“Oh, Shit” I muttered whilst attracting stares from a mother with an impressionable child.
I gathered the deteriorating bag together into the crook of my arm, as if I were cradling a baby, and began to make my wet way to the end of the tunnel. As I walked, I passed an old man playing the accordian, I smiled at him and he smiled back and immediately burst into a tumultous rendition of “Delilah”. This made me laugh and brightened my day.
I dropped two pounds into the hat and silently thanked him with another smile and carried on walking. When I reached the edge of the tunnel, I joined the throng of people psyching themselves up for a mad dash to their destination, faffing with umbrellas and hoods and complaining. I looked at them, and they at me, standing there in my soaking top holding my bundle of mess and with my dreched hair dripping water into my black eyes (my mascara had run) and they radiated false sympathy towards me in resigned grimaces.
“Do you want an umbrella or something?” a woman asked me, offering me a tartan one.
“Oh, is it raining out?” I replied, and received a confused look in return. Yet I could still feel my eyes dance as I felt this overwhelming desire to laugh and eupohoria crept up from my boots to my roots as my smile stretched across my face and before anymore could be said, I turned on my heel, and proceeded to meander my way back to the train station.
And so, as the melody of the accordian slowly became quieter, I looked around and saw all the people running and rushing with coats pulled over their heads and wayward umbrellas being cursed at as they dashed for shelter under a balcony of a shop or arcade. I thought – that’s not living. Rushing around, trying desperately not to get wet. Whilst you are hastening to get away from the rain, you are missing what the it feels like on your skin, what it smells like and the sensation of it falling onto your neck and dancing down into your chest. You cannot call running for cover “living”.
I threw my hair back again and faced upwards, watching the drops as they fall down onto me, blurring my vision and tickling my lips and as the last chorus of “Why why why, Delilah” melted away, I thought -
This is Living.
S.E.M
