Near to my place, there is a big street, full of shops and full of people. On a Saturday is difficult to find my way in the middle of some many feet and bikes. But in between this shallow mortality, I see the piano guy. He carries his fragile piano even when it is cold or the street is empty, he sits in his tinny bench and play. Some people stop, watch and give money. Some doesn’t know that he exists. I always stop to see him, even when I am able to listen his music from my doorstep. I like to be there in the audience and see him, I like to clap. As I like to watch a flower bloom, even when the perfume is already all across the garden. I know it is not important for him – I am just one more. But it is important for me, makes me think that is possible. It is really possible live this life with beauty. He conquers some little piece of immortality and by staring at him, I feel inspired to save my own soul.
But he is not the only one. In the same street, at night, when everything is closed and coldly empty, a violinist man fills the air with music. He is in his thirties or forties it’s difficult to say, seems to be Asiatic and uses a dark suit, as if he just left his job moments ago. Often, I arrive late at home and I walk that street immersed in shadows. And below a lamp with an amber light, he moves his arms and embraces the violin. I had never stopped to watch him, as I had never stopped before to see a person cry. He seems so lonely and so incredibly brave that I find myself smiling: how many among us, are able to open a window and shout deeply and honestly?
During this cold and rough winter, both were absent from this street. That was more difficult to live with than the negative degrees or the lack of sun light itself. Today, for the first time in some months, the piano guy was back and I knew instantly that spring was arriving. And with it also the dreams, the bridges, the possibilities. All, because of music.
