Guitar on the Corner

I wrote this in 2004, during my sophomore year in college. I went to school in an artsy part of New York City that was filled with little botiques, painters, and street performers. Often, there would be some sort of musician playing in front of the subway station on the corner and even though I wanted to stop and listen, some responsibility or other always kept me moving on by. I was reflecting on that when I wrote this piece.

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Guitar on the Corner

The Styrofoam cup is hot in my hands, the steam rolling up through the opening in the top and moistening my nose. I blow out a condensation-cloud of cold air, momentarily blocking the warmth, and then it is back again, a temporary help for the icy chill deep inside.

The streets are filled with people, but I don’t see a single one of them. I never do. Avoid eyes. Don’t look at faces. They are the rules this city has taught me, chiseling me into a mobile statue. Somebody bumps into me, pushing past and leaving me before I can even see the face of the life that just brushed past mine, one of a million each day. All of them rush to go somewhere, to do something, and I wonder, for a moment, what drove that one particular life. But there are just too many lives to wonder about, and I decide, maybe, I’d rather not know.

And so, I’m left walking down the dirty New York sidewalk, barely seeing the figures that pass me by—barely seeing anything, in fact. It occurs to me that there are things happening all around me and for once, I actually look up. Wow. I’d forgotten how tall those buildings are. I stare at them for a few minutes, lost in their height, in the white solid cloud-cover of the sky behind, a few late-migrating birds flying by… looking up and thinking that the skyscrapers really are something amazing, that we could build something so big when each of us is so small.

Tripping on a crack in the sidewalk brings me back to reality and I barely catch myself before I can fall to the ground, spilling hot chocolate everywhere and embarrassing myself in front of all the passersby I never see. But somehow, I manage to stay standing, remembering why it is that I don’t pay much attention to the world around me. There’s too much to take in, it’s too overwhelming, and if I started to see just a little, could I stop looking at everything before it would fill up my mind and take over?

There’s a man playing the guitar on the corner. He has a really nice voice, nicer than many famous pop singers that I’ve heard. I watch, drawn by the music that reaches through my wall of numbness, and I wonder how he does it, standing there with so many people just passing by and never giving him a glance. Standing there and being rejected time and time again. Does he really make any money that way? Is he happy? How many people actually look at him and feel bad for him…? How many people actually reach past the bubble of their self-centered world to see what lies beyond?

Not me.

I have bills to pay and errands to run and a secure, stable future to create. There’s a problem with my financial aid for school that I have to worry about, the one I just came from trying to solve. It’s still there though, despite my efforts, and I know it will take several more exhausting, valiant attempts to get it fixed. At home, I know there’s a list of things waiting to be done, untouched, its annoying nagging increasing as days go by. Then there is the coming test that haunts me…

Simply put, I’m selfish. And I wonder how it is people find the strength to sacrifice the things that society tells us are important in life, in order to have the energy and time to help another person. What if I decided to ignore my obligations to class, homework, and work, to give a little time to someone else? There would be consequences to pay… there always are, ones I’m not willing to face.

And that guy singing with his guitar on the street corner? Could I help him, improve his existence somehow? Maybe a compliment or something? Stop and talk, show him his talent is noticed?

But he’s down the block and to go there would take me out of my way. My watch beeps out the start of a new hour and I know that I’m late for class, that my self-centered world is calling on me to focus back on it, to ensure the education that will ensure my future and perhaps, though not likely, my one-day happiness.

And so the verdict was decided before the case was really even questioned, I hurry on my way across the street to my destination.

The sound of the guitar drifts behind me on the cold winter breeze. Wow, he has a nice voice. I wonder if anyone will ever tell him that.