Today was amped with desire to make an appearance at the Lincoln Center Rubenstein Atrium for a free admission performance, featuring a musical tribute to Jazz greats Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington.
I worked through my lunch break today to catch an early train. I shuffled out of the office with enough time to briskly walk down to the station - MTA broadcast across the overhead monitor - "4:36 PM train to Penn Station CANCELLED". I did my best to curb my visible annoyance, I sweated out the pits of my sweater to make a train that wasn't going to be there for another 30 minutes.. so let's make the best of it with a slice and a couple garlic knots at Gino's Pizza down the block, I said to myself.
The train pulls in on time, a stern and bothered crowd of people exit from each car, perhaps caught up in the delay that halted our commute as well. I board and put in my earbuds for music, and no sooner than putting my hands down, the conductor comes up on the loudspeaker to announce we are being held at the station due to a train breaking down a few stops ahead. Great, now the late train is going to be LATE-ER. I wedge my ticket in the cushion of the seat in front of me for the conductor to punch, so I can close my eyes without be bothered about it and sleep off the intense impatience starting to overpower me.
From behind closed eyes, I can hear the groups of travelers silently groaning, cold and tired from standing on the platform for so long most likely, boarding the train and trying to find a seat. The conductor chimes in a few more times as we sit, for another extended stint as we got closer to our final stopping point at Penn Station, to apologize for the delays.. many trains were delayed, cancelled, or combined to accommodate travelers - blah blah blah, I say - because what should have been a 40 minute trip became almost 2 hours.
I have it set in my mind as I take the stairs up from the platform to the subway, that there will be no more seats in the auditorium and that all the tickets will be gone.. so what's the use in even going... then - SNAP! - the strap from my purse snaps loose, and the loads swings like pendulum into the face of a passenger directly behind me, who calmly grabbed and passed it ahead to me. UGH.... the breaking point is slowly, gradually... QUICKLY, approaching. Emotionally, somehow, and physically, from the tense rush of anxiety of being delayed for so long but doing everything on my end that I was supposed to do to make things go right, I just couldn't even bring myself to travel uptown and arrive at the venue to find out -"Sorry, we have no more seats.. we're sold out completely" - so, I turned the other way and caught a train Downtown toward my apartment to mope, be angry, feel sorry that I didn't at least try to go in and see if there were seats left.
The Downtown A train was closing its doors, but I managed to squeeze in, which forced my hand to accidentally grab onto the shoulder of a stranger standing right in the doorway, which I immediately apologized for, and as I turn my head to the middle aisle directly in front of me, a seated man dressed in all black and fingerless gloves was furiously, but gorgeously playing, Bach Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude... the entire "everything" just stopped - I was enraptured.*
The steadfast failure of today came into fruition as I watched this cellist play those strings with his eyes closed, making gestures to stand and allow passengers to exit and enter at each stop, not speak, only play, and not interfere with any boast of talent, or a plea to help alleviate some kind of financial woe, not even pass his hat between crowds to suggest wanting anything - just to listen, and pass a dollar forward at will.
In my heart, I know that there were circumstances today that were not within my control. I couldn't fix the train, or prevent my bag from breaking, but I made the choice to turn away from Lincoln Center, and seek ill thoughts toward the immediate society that had wronged me.. but somehow the universe sought it fit to bring me to the one subway car that had something extraordinary to amend it all, and I felt like I needed to make peace with how terrible I was feeling - so I opposed it by opening my wallet, and giving the four or five dollars I had in it, with a "thank you" directly to him.
Out of a cloudy shit-storm of a situation, I got to trace out the silver-lining from a spontaneous, free-admission, 7-minute "mini-concert", and found a way to express gratitude rather than stay repose in bitterness from a series of events I had no control over - I took control of myself. And in reality, that's all we can really do. Right?
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
- Rumi
