Finding some peace

Its the day after the 48hour tube strike. A day when i find my resiliance totally depleated. Its raining. Properly raining. I run across the road to catch the 318 bus which is sitting at the bus stop. I shouldnt have - its a little one door bus that goes round the houses and is picking up heaps of local sorry-arse people too thick to move inside the bus properly and allow their fellow passengers to get on after them. This delays the bus. At every stop. It takes a long time to get to the station this way. I am now late. And sweary. 

The tube is packed. Everyone is irritated. A woman wraps herself round the central pole in a way that nobody else can hold onto it. At my interchange at Highbury the train is due in 6 minutes. Too long for my agitated self to wait. Back onto the Victoria line - one stop to kings cross to pick up the Northern line instead of riding the overground to Moorgate. 

The Victoria line train is packed still. I squeeze myself on. Shoulder to shoulder with a man my height and my head bent out of shape by a woman's arm hanging onto the overhead bar. Behind me a tall black man's buttocks fit into the small of my back. His lower back rests against my back. Its a strange in the moment thing. But i find i don't mind. Its a sort of intimate strangers' touch that makes me reconnect with human kind. Touch. It can be very important. And it replenishes my reailiance enough to complete the commute more calmly.