His clothes were dirty and worn. He was not tidy, but unkempt. He sat outside on a bench in the park. From a distance and from the back he looked hunched over. But as one got closer it became clear that his posture was the result of playing a guitar. The first glance would give the impression that he was homelessness, though he may or may not have been. It did seem that he was a traveling kind; a type who had no deep roots to any one place. He played his music as if oblivious of the rest of the world.
From the outside he looked if not happy at least content. He was making music and that seemed to be his focus and purpose. The story on the inside, what wasn’t visible to the eye was different. He felt alone and cut off. He felt a lacking, a hollowness. He had imagined a life different than the one he was living. In his invented life music was present but it was different. It wasn’t the playing in the park that only earned him a meager allowance it was more. He had wanted to be famous and make a good living from his music. Instead he only just managed. And the music that he loved was always a reminder of what wasn’t, of what he hadn’t achieved. The music he loved had slowly taken to reminding him of what he hadn’t accomplished; it became a dull but persistent grinding in his core that took the joy out it, poisoned it. So while he played he wished he weren’t. Perhaps it’s time to move on, he thought, maybe it’s time to give it up and be done.
Another man approached the musician from behind. He was dressed in slacks and a polo shirt. He was clean shaven and neat. He walked with purpose toward the musician, but not with haste, it was almost strolling. He made his way around to the front of the bench and dropped something into the open case that lay in front of the man and kept walking, strolling through the park as if taking in the whole world.
The musician played for a moment longer before looking up. He saw the back of a man and nothing more. His glance moved to his case and paused there longer than he had expected it to. He looked up again at the back of the retreating man, then to his case. At a pause in the music he reached out a quick hand and snagged the roll from the case and put it in his pocket. It seemed like a lot of money, too much to leave out where it could be easily stolen. And then the playing and the music continued as if it had not been interrupted.
Later when in the safety of his room he pulled from his pocket the rubber-banded roll of bills. It opened in his hand. Rolled in with the bills was a clipping from a newspaper. He read what was written.
* * *
Music on the Air
By Mathew Sanders
Time passes and things inevitably change. Some changes are deep and slow and others are on the surface and quicker. The skyline doesn’t change overnight but the clouds do. The streets don’t much change but there is a constant flow of traffic and people. The trees grow slowly, but the leaves change color then fall from the branches and cover the ground, then new leaves bud and fill in the naked trees. Seasons change and with each new turning of time there is something to be gained, and with that also comes loss. It is the balance of things, the ebb and flow of life.
Here in the city one thing that comes with the warm summer air is the music. Street musicians that have hibernated through the winter months awake from a deep sleep and are to be found again moving among us. They are in the park on the benches, on street corners, but mostly out of the way where we hardly notice them. They enrich our lives and the enhancement is so subtle that we sometimes loose it amid the other demands of our attention. But like the smells of spring that are forgotten in fall and winter they come as a welcome friend come back from a vacation that has lasted too long. I have often sat in the park to listen to the melodies and to find creativity carried on the music.
Music is powerful.
Music is not wafted on the air like smell. Smell passes, is undefined and elusive. It flirts with those that it passes. Smell is a tease that likes to play and then flitter away. Music is different. Music is carried. It is deliberate. It doesn’t pass by. It looks for—seeks for—places to settle, penetrate. It wants to enter into bodies and into people to inspire, give life, vivify, rarefy, elevate, deepen.
Music is almost palpable, almost tangible.
Smell it is fake and the food is real. Smell is the shadow that exists beyond the physical. Music is as real as the instruments that make it. Without music an instrument isn’t complete, without music it is nothing but a corpse. Hollow, empty and lifeless.
This then is my tribute to those who make life more full, who give us a beat in our step, who put a smile on our face and who put a song in our heart. Our city is great because of the music. The music rises up against the sadness, the struggle, the monotony, and the defeat. The music is a reminder that life goes ever on and that it really is a beautiful world we live in. Life is good.
We are blessed for our city’s musicians. They give life, and without them we would discover that our city was a lifeless corpse, the remains of something that once was living but no longer is. With out the musicians we are nothing.
Thank you musician wherever you are, yours may be a thankless job, but it is often the case that what is most needed is least acknowledged. So here it is, too little and not often enough, thank you from all of us.
* * *
He finished reading the article and then read it again. He was moved and found himself wiping his eyes and realized that they were moist. He took a deep breath and breathed in hope and held it in. He let out the breath as a deep sigh, the hope stayed in but he let the despair leave him. He took another breath of hope and again let out his despair. As the feeling of failure left him he began to see his work with new perspective. He saw the value of his work. He wasn’t famous and never would be, but what he did mattered and it was noticed. As he slept that night his thoughts were light; he made a difference. He was excited for the morning and new day. He was excited to share his music with a city that needed it.
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