Stations in Life

I should tell you that a few days ago I declared angrily, "I'm not going back to the subway. I've gotten everything I can out of the experience!"

For a few days, I sat with this new outlook, feeling relieved that I'd reached that sane decision and confident that I was right.

I had come to the conclusion that it was somehow harmful to experience the feeling of being out-of-place and unnecessary while singing original songs for people who hadn't requested them. I thought that it was simply too uncomfortable...an unnecessary trial.

I figured that I could simply step away from that particular challenge, that I could choose not to confront the sense of alienation that arises naturally from being an artist and choosing to show one's true colours in public.

I chose not to focus on the many miraculous things that had happened to me since I began singing in the subway. Instead, I focused on external perceptions of myself: What are people thinking? Where is this path leading? ("Nowhere!" "Fast!") I reminded myself that I was supposed to be getting somewhere and that I'd better hop to it if I was ever going to make up for lost time.

After reaching the conclusion that busking wasn't for me after all, I found myself feeling amazed that I'd allowed myself to sing in the subways at all. I belong in a different station entirely! What was I thinking? I must have been suffering from some strange amnesia that made me lose my better judgement and follow some dreamy subterranean slope to who-knows-where.

Well, time to wake up. Get on with things. Important things. Certainly more important than singing at Bloor & Yonge, where I was scheduled for the past four mornings.

Meanwhile, I took a streetcar ride to see a friend of mine perform, and I ran into a man I knew from Fat Albert's. I had bumped into this fellow by chance several times...and being the kind of person who notices and appreciates such things, he celebrated each of our coincidental meetings as some kind of little miracle.

"Yes, yes," I said, "what a wonderful coincidence." Meanwhile I was actually feeling impatient, slightly annoyed that I'd have to share my ride with someone, and wondering if I've tended to blow all this coincidence stuff out of proportion.

To make conversation, I asked the banal question "Having a good summer?"

"No!" he declared matter-of-factly, and went on to tell me about the recent death of a close friend, a man with whom he'd shared a house for twenty years. It was Ben Kerr, the man who had made both a name and a living for himself by standing at the corner of Yonge and Bloor singing original songs for passers-by for as long as anyone could remember.

In spite of myself, I found myself drawn in to his story, getting that strange and irritating feeling once again that the universe was trying to tell me something.

An unconventional man by any standard, Ben Kerr had made (it was reported) at least a few stabs at the commercial music world at one time but had chosen the physically and psychically demanding life of a busker as a way to share his musical gifts. Over the course of many years, and highly visible in every season, he'd gained a reputation and earned a sort of respect--though of course most people probably just assumed he was crazy. I hadn't known him; in fact my main memory of him came from the time in my life when I would have rushed past him at Yonge and Bloor on the way to some important meeting.

Meanwhile, on the streetcar, my friend described Ben as a remarkably inspiring and strong person, a source of optimistic perspective in a crazy world. My friend was missing him terribly, and yet still felt inspired by and connected to him, and inspired and connected enough to me to tell me all this.

Today, he said, he was excited to be reading a book he'd found among Ben's things. It was called "Lies My Ego Taught Me".