Petals in My Donations Box

Travelling on the subway train, on my way to busking at the 14th street subway station, a guy told me that he has seen me in the movie ‘Dummy’ with actor Adrian Brody.
When I got to my busking station for the day, a guy was playing electric guitar and singing on the platform. I made my way up the stairs to the Music Under New York permitted busking spot.

Karen, the blond blind lady, stopped to chat. She told me about a restaurant on Long Island where people experience eating in complete darkness in order to experience what it is like to be blind. This restaurant hires musicians to play while people eat.
Karen is admirably entrepreneurial. She is now teaching high school kids a five week workshop at the Queens Museum. The workshop is about how to work with disabled people in museums. She also started working as a psychic from her home and she plans to rent space from the Edgar Casey Institute near Penn Station.

A guy holding flowers scattered a few red petals in my donations box.
The sound of a Chinese er-hu was wafting up the stairs from the platform.

Sixto, the Andean pan-flute player, came to say ‘hi’. He doesn’t play much in the subway any more. Instead, he sells Andean stuff at a mall. He showed me a bear claw pendant he was wearing. “I’m glad I’m encountering you and not a bear right now…”, I said.

The teen-ager named Natalia who goes to school near by came to say ‘hi’. I haven’t seen her in a whole year. Turns out she spent a year in Honduras, just to try something new. She told me that when she returned to JFK and heard everybody speaking English she felt like hugging everybody.

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