Still Sundays

June 10, 2012.

Today was a Sunday so still that it was made for nothing.

It was a spring June day. The stillness felt like a lullaby made for sleeping. In Stillness much happens. Sometimes in stillness  only repose happens.

On my way home earlier I saw many people seated in outdoor seating areas of restaurants. Who says the economy is bad? Maybe we all just want more and that’s the problem. If neither the mainstream media nor “real” people on “social media” are going to be honest where will we get our facts and what’s really happening?

The “Obamacare Act” has me quiet worried because no one knows the fine print.  The bill still doesn’t provide for what I need: preventative healthcare options. And even if I pitched in for those who don’t care about their health it still doesn’t cover for what they really need. And if the Supreme Court overturns the bill it has far bigger constitutional implications than what the bill contains. There is no integration of vision. It passes we suffer because of certain provisions that benefit big corporations. It doesn’t pass we suffer for future legal cases. Separate branches of the government seem like different parts now and corporations are the governing body.

A few weeks ago in May I sat on a bench after my yoga practice. There was a slight drizzle and I found myself agitated by so much that was happening in this world that I couldn’t control and whatever little control I had over my own life paled in comparison to how I wanted things to be. Usually feeling grateful for what one does have always does the ‘trick’. The trick being a quick reality check of now. That night, as I am tonight, grateful for love in all its arrangements: love with a wonderful man, my family, my close friends, appreciation for physical mobility without any major handicaps, appreciation for always having just enough. And yet sitting there on the bench that night I couldn’t help being annoyed at the cars and cabs that splashed past the median and the people crossing the street held a concentration reserved for judgment day. I recall having had a great yoga practice and yet I felt all this gunk had surfaced, filled with anxiety and melancholy at the state of current affairs.

And then out of nowhere began this wonderful music. It was a scene out of a movie. Everything faded into background and there was just wonderful music. The man played with so much heart that he transformed the moment. Then another moment. Then another. It wasn’t very long before people opened their windows from their expensive Upper West Side apartments to applaud. And then my mother called. Her optimism is always so abundant. I spoke to her that night, holding my phone in one hand and my umbrella in the other, and I listened to her as the man continued playing his music. Afterwards I just sat there for another five minutes to let the moment become a permanent imprint in my memory box, the box of moments that sustain us to continue hopefully with a goofy grin against “fate’s stern face”.

I walked up to that man and gave him $5.00. This is the most I have ever offered anyone playing anything on streets anywhere. But I felt he could have played at any of the jazz spots I attend every now and then and I would certainly have had to pay more at an establishment.  Others offered money too.

When he took a break I asked him a few questions. I wrote his answers down. I seem to have misplaced that paper though. But what I do recall is that he was originally from Kansas City; in fact, he was from Wyandotte County, next to the one where I had grown up. I can’t recall his name now (I am still hopeful I will find that paper) but he mentioned a few jazz spots where he played now and then.

“Then why are you playing out here in the rain on the street?”

“When you gotta play, you gotta play. It’s music. I figured others could have used it tonight.”

I was reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, “Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”

This was an artist who knew art is how you live your life.

I was grateful for his music that night. I think of that moment fondly tonight.

We should all stop and listen to music more often.

Today’s Sunday is dedicated to my father, a man of integrity who always stops for the music in life, whose birthday was yesterday; and to my brother Zain, whose birthday is coming up this week, who IS music.

Today I also understood how misunderstood Stillness is. Most people wonder why ‘nothing’ comes to them in Stillness when all they are seeking is rest through stillness. Both are equally important but the two are not the same.

Gratitude for all those who make music.

~a.q.s.