Movement in public

I have a million blog posts in my head to write, some of them even sketched out so I have my arguments all set out so things look organised for me… but I’ve been so busy and/or tired that I haven’t found the time to blog.  Or I’ve been distracted reading other people’s blogs or feeling guilty for not reading other people’s blogs.  It’s been a bit of a mess.  But I’m going to Alice Springs next week, so hopefully that will help.

Anyway, back to the title of this blog… movement in public…  I’ve been reading quite a lot of Wheel Chair Dancer’s blog which discusses movement and it got me thinking about how I move through the world.

Crowds fascinate me.  The way they move through and with and past each other.  Every morning as I arrive at Flinders Street, I get to play the “Do not collide with anyone” game, which can be tricky with groups of school children occupying open space – socialising before they continue onto school, people running for connecting trains/trams/buses and everyone else moving through the state.  I am acutely aware of where people are, performing head-checks before effectively changing lanes and doing my best to move smoothly through the crowd in the straightest line possible.

I generally find it easy to move through crowds of people, finding the spaces and slipping through them, skipping ahead of my companions and then waiting for them to catch up.  There are times, when I’m wrapped up in a conversation or my own little world and I don’t move through crowds well.  I’ll make grand gestures with my hands and they’ll collide with someone who is about to overtake me on the footpath (that’s when my companion laughs at me).  I’ll not pay attention to where I’m going and almost collide with people or objects.

When this happens I tend to snap to attention and start paying attention again, moving carefully through crowds and the world.  I like to move silently and not leave a wake through the people I move through.  I typically want my movement to be controlled, quiet and smooth.

It often surprises me that there are people who regularly fail to pay attention to their surroundings, that have near misses with people who have trouble changing course quickly (such as those with prams, trolleys, crutches, wheelchairs) to avoid a collision.  But I suppose that everyone else isn’t like me, although some people may be.

Related Posts: