Where Do You Call Home?

Over the last few days, I've been getting to know the female keyboard player who's been meeting me at Yonge & Bloor. I've been handing off my scheduled spot to her when I finish playing. She appreciates it, because Yonge & Bloor is such a popular and lucrative location.

We talk a bit as I'm packing up my things and she's setting up her keyboard. She tells me that she's been a licensed TTC musician for eight years now and has recently finished a college design course.

"This is my home," she says, indicating the performance area with a laugh and a smile and a broad sweep of her arm.

Everything about her (I'll call her Marta) says "strong" and "self-sufficient". From the vigorous way she plays the piano to the fact that she sewed her own winter coat, which is stylish and warm and perfectly fitted. When she talks about adjusting to life in Canada, raising her two daughters (now successful young adults in music and art-related careers) and recently losing her husband to cancer, I can tell that she's gone through hard times--and that she's weathered them with strength and grace.

I can pick up some tips from Marta. For instance, just as I'm about to finish singing, a man I've met before in the subway comes up and says hello. Well, I think he says hello. It's extremely common for me to have half-conversations with people who are speaking primarily in other languages. Usually, smiling and nodding does the trick, but in this case it was probably too much encouragement.

When he approached me today, just before Marta arrived, he seemed a bit over-friendly. I finally grasped that he was asking me for my phone number, a request which I firmly declined. Even so, he hung around close to my guitar case. A little too close. I kept singing and tried to ignore him.

But Marta, she marched right up to him.

"Go! Get out of here!" she said.

And he did.

Maybe if I, too, considered this part of my home--my personal space--I'd be quicker to shoo undesirables out of it.

In my celebration of the subway as a shared public environment, there have been times when I haven't safeguarded my own personal boundaries. (Remember the time I let somebody else play my guitar?)

Next time this happens, I'll ask myself: "What Would Marta Do?"