What’s the worst to happen?

When I had my lovely goddaughter, age 17 living with me for a week we went to London just the two of us. We had been there before on a shopping spree aided by hubby, but this time we had sent him off to the golf course and we girls went to tackle the issue of some missing items for the new wardrobe and to take in some London culture as well.

On the first trip we had been to British Museum and now we wanted to go to the London Aquarium. And then a brilliant thing happened: We didn’t go!

The queue was 3km long and it was searing hot, so we decided to go a bit further towards Millennium Bridge, then to go back to Trafalgar Square and to take it from there. Behind the London Eye was a great atmosphere with all the pantomimes and fun fair stuff going on. When we climbed the bridge we heard some rhythms, stopped in our tracks, went back and found some guys with drums under the bridge – and they were so good. We found ourselves a nice place to sit on a wall and watched the people.

And then it became clear: We Northern Europeans have lost our spontaneity – if we ever had some.

The rhythms were really strong and hard to resist. Some little children approached the band, started dancing, looked back at the parents and stopped immediately. The more shy ones got encouraged by their parents, being used as an excuse to do some faint moves themselves.

When I was in Brazil as a girl I encountered something completely different. At a party there was no music and one guy started drumming the table, somebody else took fork and knife, others started clapping and the rest was dancing. Best party ever, although at the beginning I felt stiff like a wax figure at Madame Tussauds.

Sitting under this bridge listening, watching and getting a cold bum I remembered. And then I realised that I was one of those people myself and my girl loved the music so much and didn’t dare living it either.

Me stupid old cow had this great experience from my teenage years and apparently I hadn’t learned a thing. What on earth could happen if we would just give in and behave a bit different than the others? We were in the middle of London for crying out loud – nobody knew us there. No hubby who could be embarrassed by a crazy wife and my girl thinks I’m a bit mad anyway - ‘nice’ mad, but mad.

And so I gave in! Happily shaking away I had a bit of my own audience, I guess.

It felt great and at least I had a warm bum again. The guys from the band started grinning at us, one of whom the cutie next to me had a bit of a crush on. So to her I became the ‘cool’ mad auntie. And apart from this: ‘Nothing happened, nothing at all!’ If there are people out there remembering this fitting old cow sitting on a wall – so what? They may take their own teachings from that, whatever those may be. I don’t know them, I don’t care. And if one day I would meet one of them, let’s say in a job interview? Again! So what? That’s me. Take it or leave it!

As long as I can laugh about myself, all is well!

Love