“That panicky feeling you get when you realise you’ve left the house without your phone.”
Remember those mornings when you went through the wars to get into the office and guaranteed your first few conversations in the morning at work were about your commute; the classic delays and cancellations, the overcrowded trains tubes platforms, the claustrophobic stuffy tubes, the no seat train journey, the missed your train by seconds, the loud person on the phone next to you, the odour on the tube that nearly made you feel sick, the tube that kept stopping in the tunnel, the impressive lady sitting in front on the jerky tube doing her makeup immaculately (hats off to those ladies!) but yeah we could go on with a list of commuting conversations, right?
But for majority of us who live around or in London the option of commuting to work is part of the package. Whether it’s a rail train, tube or bus, we all commute around somehow in the big dreamy city of London. My commute consists of a rail train and then, depending on the unpredictable TfL, maybe two tubes or maybe five!
The greatness of music is definitely my survival throughout my commuting life. Whether it’s been the commute into London for uni or during my work life, my real commuting starts once I plug my ears into my Spotify playlist at full volume!
And as much as we all want to escape into our music, it will be you’re sitting on the central line and suddenly hear in the mist of your music ‘we will not be stopping at Oxford Circus; repeat we will not be stopping at Oxford Circus.’ And then your music becomes this background headache in between your mind visualising the London tube map to see what line has a decent service for your unexpected change in journey. Oh, how I haven’t missed those moments at all during Lockdown!
I also don’t miss hearing after a long day at work that ‘the Victoria line (or most commonly, the central line!) is running with severe delays.’ Who remembers those and doesn’t miss those dreaded words?
When all you want is a smooth journey home but you know with this ‘severe delays’ means your whole journey is going to be a severe headache. And like many of us, we can’t hold our frustration in because you’ll hear someone swearing all the words possible and then you look at them like keep going because that’s exactly how I feel right now.
Then we literally stand on the edge of the platform to make sure we get so close to when the doors open so that we don't miss any opportunity of getting that seat. To think back at those moments, at how close we all stood next to each other – social distancing definitely will need some work there, right? But the tube arrives, the end of your nose is literally touching the tube doors and then that’s when the next mission starts. We all push our way through onto the train and those people wanting to get off don’t know whether they are coming and going. It actually sounds like a battle field, doesn’t it? And then the arrivals enter onto the tube with their missionary eyes scanning for their target – a seat!
We push even more, jump over bags, ignore the world around us because we have seen our seat but little do we know that there is someone else on the other side doing the exact same thing as us and there it is, the awkward moment when they get the seat before you and you casually turn around to see everyone you pushed and jumped over looking at you! Who’s been there? It’s either happened to you, or you were so close to it happening to you? Let’s be honest?
Commute journeys are usually surrounded around haggard, tired and grumpy Londoners, would you agree? On top of being suffocated and the oozing odour that we somehow survive – oh, when you look back doesn’t it make you think how did we do it?!
Anyway, finally we get to Kings Cross St. Pancras and the tackle through the people to get out of the tube is missionary within itself, but you’re free you’ve made it. You go back to your full volume music and you get your marching London commuter walk on. And what I mean by marching London commuter walk is that extra fast-pace auto-pilot walk that we automatically do, we dodge ball in-out and around the other commuters in a rush even if we aren’t in a rush.
But putting aside the usual announcements of delays and cancellations and after nearly three months of Lockdown it got me thinking that there’s no place like home when you step into the world of London, right?
The buzz of coffee shops in the morning and then bars and pubs after-work vibes. To then the hustle and bustle of locals, workers and the free spirit explorers of tourist embracing our home of London. To treating yourself to a slightly overpriced (but worth it!) Pret breakfast. There’s just something about our London! And I’ve definitely learnt during Lockdown that I fully took advantage of having London at my doorstep and being there every day I easily took the ordinary for granted. And to think how many people thrive to fly and visit London whilst we are trains away, right?
The rat-race of life covered my appreciation of simply being a Londoner and that’s definitely something I want to change. Our reality of life today has changed so maybe it’s time to change our appreciation on the ordinary things that we took for granted and value more of the simple pleasures of life, maybe?
