Transported

My commute home from the hospital involves a subway switch, among other things. Switching from the L to the G tonight, I just missed my second train. The swarm of passengers exiting that train ascended and flooded the stairwell that I was trying to descend. I pushed my way to the platform just as the train doors closed and the train pulled away from me. The hum from the rush of the crowd and the rumble of the train faded away to reveal a violinist creating the most amazing music! This young guy was playing a haunting Irish tune that I could feel through my body. I've heard of people making a violin "sing," but tonight I really heard it! The song was so beautiful; I felt it in my ears, my heart, my stomach, my liver, like my soul wanted to escape my body. It went on for a good seven minutes. A train came on the opposite track and its rumble blanketed the sound of his violin, but his body continued to rock and sway with the music he made. And when the train was gone again the violin's cries were the only sound in the station. No one chattered over his craft. When the song ended, he paused and then began to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I was so disappointed that he traded one soul aching song for something so pedestrian, until I realized that this song, too, haunted me under his influence. He transformed the Metropolitan Station on the G line into an intimate concert hall and when, in the middle of the third song, my train came and the closing doors and train rumble drowned him out, my eyes were moist. I didn't want to leave him. I hear music in this city every day: in the subways, on the streets, from my neighbors' band practicing on the other side of my wall, and from the iPods people turn up to drown out the city and street performers. But this violin wasn't like the noise of street performers--it was like a new mode of transportation.