The Troubador

Sitting there in Silver Spurs with steaming coffee, a trunk and guitar to the right, the Troubador took a sip and looked straight at me. I recognized the songster surrounded by everything defining a musical identity. In a five-foot square of space, all of the Troubador's belongings sat neatly tucked away alongside the small square black table. A wardrobe trunk, a guitar case and satchel, all black, carved out a space in the diner like a moveable office or studio, the top of the trunk holding the business of the day. On the table with the coffee, lay a gleaming white laptop. and on the laptop lay a mobil phone, silent but poised for action.

The Troubador smiled and moved to the music playing in the background, grooving with the mood, the tempo, and zeitgeist of the moment, perfectly content and comfortable as though this space was a permanent haven. Thoughts surfaced like music rippling through the diner in counterpoint to the countless conversations of customers at nearby tables.

The phone rang and the Troubador flipped open the phone and quietly streamed a phrase, the patterns connecting with sounds defining the perimeter, music flowing in and out of the moment. It was though everything the Troubador touched turned to music. A stranded song maker, caught in the routine of a Monday morning, shaping time with the rhythm of ideas bursting from the imagination.

The food came...eggs over easy with sausage, homefries, and toast. Without missing a beat, the Troubador incorporated the breakfast into the routine, even this was a musical texture weaving a web around the space, a place for music as presence, as sounding silently in the immediacy of awareness, torso dancing in place to the tune of a different drummer.

Putting down the phone, the Troubador connected with the music in the background, arms waving to the beat. I looked at the Troubador and saw a child of the future bursting through all impediments to become a singing poet of a new age. I looked at her, a youngling barely eighteen, long black flowing hair, intense dark eyes, music pulsing through her like sonic circulation.

She looked at me, and for an instant, we recognized each other, troubadors passing through time to different refrains and distant destinations.