I love those occasional unexpected moments when nothing feels finer than simply being alive.
Last night I was walked towards Balham tube station, after two victories at Risk (giving me an unprecendented four wins in a row) and a pint and a half of Guinness. That's such a nice amount to drink: not enough to make you drunk, but enough to give your step a little lift. I was feeling fit and healthy after a reasonably easy nine mile run earlier in the day. Not everything had gone my way - I'd just lost eight pounds on the fruit machine - but I was feeling optimistic and focused; the funk I've been in for the past few months is slowly lifting and suddenly being single and having to work out what I'm going to do next professionally are positive attributes, rather than burdens around my neck. Like so many albatrosses. Or kinky octopuses.
Life felt good and I felt like singing. For some reason the song I wanted to sing was "Mother and Child Reunion" by Paul Simon, a song I haven't really heard or even thought about for a few years. And the streets were fairly empty, so I started singing it. Fairly quietly, but fairly confidentally. Anyone passing me would have heard me clearly and assumed that I was drunk, but the Guinness was only a catalyst in this process (not entirely accurate as the Guinness was not remaining unchanged in the experiment, but was instead rapidly turning into urine).
I carried on as I went through the ticket barrier, happily oblivious to what the people coming up the escalator would think of me or my dubious taste in music.
I had just missed the train and it was approaching eleven o clock and so the northbound platform was empty. I was able to sing as loud as I wanted to my heart's content and not fear upsetting anyone or making myself the target of thugs looking for an excuse to punch someone (and when a small, fat man is singing Paul Simon songs on his own, out loud, a thug would require little in the way of an excuse - no court in the land would convict him).
My voice echoed through the tunnels, giving me the impression that I am a much better singer than I actually am. I wondered, idly, if a record producer might be coming down the escalator now and hear this angelic voice and decide he had to sign me up. Before turning the corner and seeing the monster that these sweet sounds were coming from and deciding not to say anything. Or possibly working out if he could market the idea of a masked singer, covered in a blanket, who always stood behind a screen.
But this didn't happen.
After a few minutes a man did come round the corner, but a train was arriving at the same time, so the last few notes of my song were drowned out. So my chance to be a masked, blanketted pop star hidden by a screen disappeared. I have to say he looked a lot older and less fashionable than I had expected record producers to be, as well.
As nice as it would have been for my fellow commuters had I carried on with my song, decency and politeness prevailed and I settled down to a quiet game of Scrabble on my Gameboy, with the sound turned down.
Such moments of unprompted outbursts of happiness are rare enough - especially in Balham tube station, which has the power to suck the optimism and joy from a four year old about to open his stocking on Christmas morning (which is why it is closed on Christmas Day)- so we should cherish them when they arrive. And remember them when the dark fog of depression inevitably descends upon us again.
Because if life is good enough to make us sing, for no real reason, on just a handful of occasions, then it's worth hanging on to.
So hang in there.
