My Mexican Coin

This morning as I was getting ready to go out busking, I found my lucky Mexican coin.

I had held onto it faithfully for many months, but sometime during the summer I lost track of it. Maybe I put it in my wallet and mixed it up with my other change. Maybe I accidentally spent it, leaving it as a worthless tip at a dimly-lit restaurant somewhere. I was annoyed with myself for losing the Mexican coin. I even considered going to the Currency Exchange to get another one, though I don't know how much it's actually worth.

I figured it was gone for good. But this morning, I found it in a Ziplock bag along with an ever-increasing mountain of uncounted change.

My Mexican coin looks just like a toonie, so it's perfect to put into my guitar case as "seed money". At the end of every busking shift, I have to subtract the seed money I put in at the beginning, but when I use the Mexican coin I don't have to subtract it. (It's a mind game, I know, but strangely it works for me.)

Earlier this week, I played a short set of songs at a local club, in front of an audience of about 25 people. I felt confident and enthusiastic about the music I was playing, and I was enjoying the physical space: a local restaurant painted a rich warm red, with cheerful paintings on the walls by local artists and a good sound system. I felt great, I sounded great...and the nice lighting probably made me look great too.

This morning at Osgoode station, I played the same songs, and didn't feel that way at all. The environment was cold and unflattering and I felt underconfident. When another musician came by and said hello, I immediately stopped playing, happy for the distraction. When a guitar string broke just after he left, I wasn't at all surprised (the guitar a mirror of my fragile state) and gratefully started to pack up.

Along with a few Canadian dollars, I collected the Mexican coin.

One of the songs I sang, in both performances, had recently prompted another musician to urge me to start shopping my songs around to publishers. This particular song, he thought, had strong commercial potential. The song went over very well on Wednesday night but attracted no notice this morning.

Like the Mexican coin, the song may indeed be worth money, but only if it's in the right hands, in the right setting. This morning at Osgoode Station, the coin sat in my case, dormant, waiting to be transported to Mexico where it could participate in the actual economy...and my songs were similarly square pegs looking for round holes.

It's all a question of fit, I thought, as I slipped my token into the turnstile and headed home.