The Winter Busker
Just before I left the coast, the days were endless gold. Riddled with sun kissed sandy trails of rock pools, wild bird calls & ripples of pure rides, never-ending blue barrels curled as far as the eye could see. But demands were too pressing to ignore and there was only one course of action I could take to turn it around ..it unfortunately did not include this island paradise.
I traded in the combi for a plane ticket & disembarked with sleet winds skidding across the helplessly exposed skin of my cheeks. Wrapping my dreads around my nose I tightened my collar and pulled my hood forward stepping in haste over an iced road into a shelter where my bus was due to arrive within the hour. In the distance I heard music and in hand as always was my guitar. I swung my pack onto my back and followed the sound. The louder it got the less street lights there were and against a red brick back-drop around a cluster of drum-fires I found people singing, two drums holding the beat, one lady throwing a line at every fourth one and others echoing her words in time. My guitar was out, I found the key she was singing in and the rhythm that was already humming. Those voices and beats bounced sky high, it must've been audible for miles. When another guitar appeared this old guy with grey locks started hitting this crazy percussion on it, twanging like a chopper bass, drumming the box and strings, making the sound (now a symphony of synchronies) rattle like bones of the earth and scatter like sparks of galaxies thrown across space.
Through the minds of the ears upon which the reverberation falls, like a memory of something real..already paused to wake by choice versus necessity , the sound is heard & goes with those in earshot.
Forty minutes disappeared and I heard the slow squeal of brakes as buses began arriving behind me. With hugs and smiles, claps to the back and lifelong conversations in a second of eye-contact, with not a single word of mutually understandable language I departed from my instant, temporary, & permanent global family completely unaware of the snow coming in sideways, warmed from the inside out by the song still playing in my mind.
Leaning against the wall in the shower the hot water feels like home with it's bamboo shade and baking heat. Grounded, I can feel my feet again. Humming the same tune, entering the giant sandwich of thick covers pulled up to my chin, beanie down to my nose, I didn't move til morning..though dreams echoed fire and rhythm all night long.
Summer is in your heart and winter is to hold the hands of those who've forgotten how to feel.
Days later I find myself sleeing in an airport on my backpack not entirely sure of where I'd arrived at or was planning on heading to, but in one piece with nothing missing. I made some decisions, booked in to clean up and repack and am off the ground by sundown.
Stepping into the foyer of muddy boots, jackets and umbrellas I stepped out of my own and into the front door of the backpackers. Met with a cacophony of sounds coming from all different directions between arrivals and departures, loiterers that seemed to be permanent fixtures, the lounges and counter, music and even a game of ping-pong all came towards me at once. In the mayhem people passed un-noticing and moseying around. Seeing the decent yard I decide it will do and paying for 3 nights I lock away my backpack and head for the street. The cobble-stones are wet and so is the air. So MUCH so that breathing is like drinking rain. The orange lights overhead dot the path up to the high street with it's bluer signs and buzzing cafes. Stepping into the flow of colors and feet I soon duck into a closed shop doorway to rest and roll a cigarette. Propping my guitar up against the wall a stranger leans in to use the still burning match to light his fire-chains that jump to life as he immediately begins to make swirls, forcing people's paths outward away from him. Within seconds tribal chords and bass notes are bouncing from my guitar, with a drummer that has joined in rippling the beats. For twenty minutes a work of art, a spontaneous twirl of life, dance & magic enthralled passers by and lit up children's eyes with dreams, while we three, total strangers rode the tidal wave of sound right out of this world, as one, lost in surrender to the moment.
And the fire guy was gone, zipping up my guitar I find myself on a damp footpath along the beach through trees with lights up ahead getting nearer., I watching steadily all that was lit up the bare feet and drum shadow right ahead telling me where next to step. Exhausted from some quite daring feats on route, arriving at the roaring bonfire in the center of the doughnut shaped thicket, I collapsed into the loose bales of hay between patches of jovial people either singing or drumming drowsily. The past twenty four hours had caught up with me and finding myself under the hood of my jacket between two cozy couples I was out like a light. I woke with my arm being tugged and it was just as well since the fire had turned to ash, the site was deserted and rain was growing in volume by the second. We staggered, half slid down the now muddied path that was at least thankfully now partially lit by the coming dawn. We parted ways at the circle and I took the first left back down to the only building I recognized and found in it the bed I'd paid to occupy for the night.
