Warming Up at Osgoode

Today I came back to Osgoode, prepared to freeze.

I was also meeting a friend for lunch. This was a very generous and supportive friend who, it turned out, was not only happy to stand in a subway station listening to me for seven (seven!) songs, but who also called out requests (songs from my first CD…at first I wondered whether or not I'd remember them) and even applauded. She encouraged me to keep playing for several minutes after I would have called a lunch break, resulting in a few more precious loonies.

As expected, my hands were cold by the time I reached the station. I had always wondered how musicians managed to play outdoor winter gigs here in Canada and had assumed I’d be hopeless at it myself. What I hadn’t realized, until today, was that because your hands are constantly moving—and moving quickly for that matter—they are exercising and warming up. (Okay, so this is why I didn't become a doctor or a physiotherapist.)

For years I’d avoided cross-country skiing because I assumed I’d turn into a popsicle (like I had, for instance, on the winter hayrides of long-ago Girl Guide trips, which were horribly cold because we were completely inert and sitting on the back of a tractor). When I finally went skiing, I sweated—and loved it!

Today at Osgoode, I didn’t exactly work up a sweat, but I didn’t freeze either, and I managed to play a full hour without getting frostbite. (I know, I know, my new friend John probably does four hours at a stretch in mid-February, but we all have to start somewhere.) The more vigorously I played, the warmer my fingers got and the better the music sounded. Good plan.

+++

Early in my shift, a man came up and enthusiastically donated. Then he picked up the CDs and looked at them as if he might buy one. I stopped my song and chatted with him (trying to sell the CDs) and then he took me by surprise.

"Do you have a capo?" he asked.

"Um, yeah, why?" I responded.

Turned out HE wanted to play a song. Before I knew it, I’d taken off my guitar (what was I thinking?!) and was listening to him play HIS song in MY spot. (I had no idea I was so territorial.) I also realized immediately that he didn’t have a license and this sort of impromptu jamming with friends (newfound or otherwise) was specifically frowned upon.

He was a nice guy and it was a sweet song. But as I listened to him as politely as possible, I just kept thinking, please, please let this be the last verse.

Note to self: figure out what to say next time this happens.