A day of beauty. No, that's not one of those all-day spa treatment things. Today, I saw and heard beautiful things (and, for once, this isn't a reference to hot boys, either).
It's hard to describe beauty, but I have to try.
This morning, as I was standing on the subway platform in Penn Station, I heard a violin. One certainly encounters musicians in the NYC subway system, some good and some bad, but this was something else entirely. This was amazing. When I first heard it, the words that went through my head were, "oh my God, that's gorgeous." I couldn't see the source of the music from where I was standing, but I immediately decided that it must be some kind of recording. It was too beautiful to be coming from a subway performer.
I had come up a particular stairway to stand at a particular point on the platform, so I'd be near the exit I needed that morning at the 14th Street station (I had to pick up a shirt at the dry cleaner near work, and that's near the center exit). Even so, this beautiful sound was far more important to me than being conveniently located at the next stop. So I wandered south on the platform until I found the source. It was a real violinist! There he stood, hypnotizing me with the gorgeous notes he was making.
As I and several other commuters watched and listened, he mentioned that he'd performed music for movies (in response to someone's question, I believe--I think they may have seen him in the movie, actually serenading one of the characters). He was a true artist, and he brightened my whole morning. I happily peeled off a couple of bills from the money in my pocket and left them in his open violin case, asking him to please come back soon. I think I saw a couple of CDs near his case, and next time I'll see about buying one.
This afternoon, I had to go to our corporate offices for a meeting. Walking Manhattan's streets, I was reveling in the beauty of this lovely day. A gorgeous blue sky was beautifully set off by a scattering of puffy white clouds. Looking up at the Empire State Building, I wished I'd had my camera with me. I'd never seen it look more majestic, framed by a perfect early autumn sky. What a glorious day!
5 comments:
It was that way here in Boston today, too, minus the puffy clouds. The sky was a deep and intense blue. I remembered that Fritz had a grammar school teacher who traught the kids a poem about "October's Bright Blue Weather" and here it was three days early. Just a perfect day.
That's the same weather we'd been having, and as I wandered around the city yesterday, I was hit with similar feelings about the downtown core here in Montreal. Less the violin soundtrack, of course.
Gorgeous. Days like that, where even the juvenile tags on ad posters and rats scurrying across the rails take on a beauty of their own.
Hopefully the next time you're in S.F. you'll happen to pass through Powell St. station when that old guy plays his Chinese violin. A real treat.
I so envy you living in NYC.
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