Ask, and you shall have tea-lights

I could have gone to Yonge & Bloor this morning, but instead I went to Pape.

In daylight, with the Coke stain removed, it looked better than it had on Saturday night. And I felt better. Yesterday night, after the streetcar ride, I'd played at an open mic called, appropriately enough, The Smiling Buddha.

It was was dimly lit, with tea-light candles (none of the other places I played ever had them), twinkly Christmas lights and round cafe tables...and a roomful of friends just waiting to applaud.

But I knew, after the conversation on the streetcar, that all my justification of needing a "real" stage rang false. Whenever I have trouble with busking, it's not about the external setting or the people passing by, it's about me and my thoughts, which frequently return to insecurities and comparisons. I have the ability to sing freely and joyfully no matter where I am; it's my mind that gets in the way, on an irritating and regular basis.

Mulling this over before going on stage last night, I picked up the tea-light and swirled the wax around, causing the flame to go out.

Meanwhile, the singer onstage asked aloud, "Is it the Smiling Buddha or the Laughing Buddha?"

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Today at Pape, I found myself disappearing in a new way.

I was less a focus of attention, and more a junction-point, like the subway station itself...and like my friend on the streetcar, who with generosity and delight passed on the wisdom of a busker I never knew.

At one point in the morning, a man came along, trying to keep hold of a crumpled-looking bunch of papers, at risk of being swept away by the ever-present subway wind. (Other than the fact that he was waving these scribbled-on papers around, he looked completely normal, by the way.)

"I'm writing about the human condition!" he said.

And then he went on to tell me something important and true about the human condition, which I agreed with at the time but which I can't remember now. The moment happened, and passed by.

And separately, along came two women whom I'd met at the station before. (One was the opera singer, the other was the first person who bought a CD from me in the subway, on my very first day.) After I introduced them to each other, they kept talking and arranged to meet again for the singer's next performance.

As I watched them smiling and laughing with each other like old friends, I stood off to one side, playing a little instrumental interlude.

(10:20 - 12:25: $19.71)