Woodbine

I hadn’t been planning to busk today. Instead, I thought I’d just travel around the system, checking out the various performance locations. But as I thought about doing that, I realized that I’d feel frustrated not having my guitar with me.

I must be hooked.

So I headed over to Woodbine Station--an unscheduled stop for me. The performance area was free. It was located in between the two sets of escalators leading down to the trains—a nice friendly corridor in toothpaste green.

Right away, a woman came along and gave me six dollars. Then a man tossed in a loonie—all before I’d finished my first song.

The rest of my shift continued that way, with people tossing in loonies and toonies mostly, and other people just nodding and smiling. I noticed, for the first time, that the majority of people can’t really get to their money: it’s deep in their purses or in inaccessible knapsacks. So I found myself appreciating the nods and smiles as much as the actual coins. Also, I noticed a surprising number of people who were limping or coping with some other form of physical disability. (As it happens, I've been struggling with a herniated disk in my lower back, so I'm limping too. Standing and singing is one of the most comfortable things I can do.) Also, as on previous days, I noticed many people who looked beaten down and desperate—more in need of music than I was in need of change.

A couple of people stopped to listen or chat and left without dropping anything into my case. Today it didn’t seem to matter.

When I’d been playing about an hour, I noticed the woman at the Gateway Newstand waving at me. I could see her kiosk from where I was playing. It was up a small flight of stairs, about a hundred feet away. She was leaning far out over her chocolate bars and magazines, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see her. As she beckoned me over, I actually looked around to see if she meant me. Then with my guitar still strapped on, I hurried over to accept the loonie she held in her hand.

+++

When I headed home on the Pape bus, two women sat down beside me. They’d been drinking already (it was now 2:30 p.m.) and they wanted to talk. After asking me about the guitar, one of them told me that she likes to play Neil Young and Pink Floyd songs, and the other said she’d taken up percussion. She explained proudly that because she’d been a dancer all her life, drumming came naturally to her. Then out of nowhere she said:

"You know, you have to follow your soul. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of you."

+++

I have written four new songs since I started playing on the subway.