Her name is Natalie. She's a Manhattan songbird, a regular fixture at the 42nd Street subway and the cafes in the Village. She serenades the Big Apple with her soulful ballads. This December, she took a poll on MySpace.
She asked, "Do you want me to come to San Francisco?"
Apparently, she got enough votes to convince her to make the trip. So she packed her bag, slung her guitar over her shoulder, and flew 3,000 miles across the country to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.
At the same time, I stepped out to get a cup of Joe. And our paths crossed.
In my morning coffee runs, I usually hurry past the corner where Ninth Avenue meets Irving Street, where the N-Judah train unloads a bevy of day-trippers and out-of-towners on their way to the Park. The steady foot traffic makes the area a popular spot for panhandlers, petition seekers, and performers. Sometimes I see an old Italian man in a sailor's cap and a peacoat, squeezing out ballads from the Old Country on an accordion. Other times, I notice a semi-intoxicated organ player, hammering away bouncy numbers from the Big Band era.
Last Friday, as I approached the crosswalk, I heard a voice full of hope and heartache. It floated from the dew-soaked sidewalk, but also from the snowy Appalachian mountains and the smoky nightclubs haunted by Joni Mitchell. It rightfully belonged to an ancient soul that had tumbled through many incarnations. Yet, it was coming from a twenty-something girl, from a face almost too fresh and tender for the devastating losses she was singing about.
But I had an unfinished article to work on. I'd promised to deliver it to the editors before Christmas. So I tore myself away, lest I might become transfixed before the angel of music.
Twelve hours later, with my draft safely dispatched to the editors' mailbox, I felt free to roam. I returned to the corner, hoping to find the curbside crooner. She was tucking her steel-string guitar away in its case.
"Closing up shop?" I asked.
She lifted up the front flap of her flannel cap to look.
"For the night," she said.
"I was hoping to hear you," I said. "Will you be back?"
"I'm doing a show tonight at Java Beach," she said, handing me a flyer. "Come see me there."
She had a slow start at Java Beach, the little cafe that faces the rolling waves from the Pacific. She was sticking her leg out from under the table, showing everybody the injury sustained during her race to catch the train to get there on time.
"I really wanted to be here," she told the roughly two dozens folks who'd assembled there. "I can show you my bloody scar as proof."
She disappeared into the bathroom a couple of times to clean her wound, to patch it up the best she could with the band-aids supplied by the sympathetic cafe staff. While tuning her guitar, she raised her steamy paper cup to toast her new discovery.
"Try the Gypsy Love tea," she urged, grinning like a child discovering applesauce for the first time.
As night fell, the espresso machine, the chatter inside, and the wind outside quited down. She filled the intimate space with her voice, captivating the circle of listeners with the warmth of her personality and the strength of her vocal.
Wings wrapped up in six strings of steel,
Dark love, I never knew dreams could turn into
Webs of evil lust;
The glazed-over look in your eyes ...
You kissed me, like a machine ..
Forgive me, it's been too long,
I can't remember, I can't remember;
Forgive me, I'm not so strong,
I can't move on ...
Once in a while, she described the orchestration: "There's a really great cello intro to this song that goes ..."
At times, she illicited chuckles with her quirky sense of humor: "This song has a really difficult part, so you guys can take bets among yourselves to see if I'll do that part or not. You don't have to bet money, maybe just bet a few strands of hair or something. Well, for some of you, that may be hard ..."
(That last comment was aimed at me, the conspicuous shaved head in the room.)
By the end of the evening, she'd won over everyone. Sara, a Brazilian drummer who also happened to be in the audience, volunteered to collect emails for her mailing list. Later, after the crowd had dispersed, Sara, Natalie, and I took over the comfortable couch by the window. We discussed, among other things, German opera, blues, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Sara decided to give me and Natalie a ride back to the Ninth-and-Irving corner. With the boisterous Lambada beat in the background, we continued to chat.
"I'm leaving tomorrow on the six o'clock flight," Natalie lamented, "but there's still so much I want to do, so many places I want to see. I haven't been to the Asian Art Museum."
"I can get you in for free," I told her. "I'm a card-carrying member there."
"Well, what are you doing tomorrow morning?" she asked.
At 10 o'clock on Sunday morning, Natalie and I stood across the N-Judah terminal. The light turned red just as the downtown train pulled in. We stood with cups of Chai tea in our hands, waiting for the light to change. Then the train began to roll.
"Should we make a run for it?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said, looking at her injured foot. "I don't want a repeat of yesterday's accident."
At that moment, Natalie's eyes met the conductor's. Amazingly, the driver did something municipal employees rarely do. She put the brakes on, threw open the doors that were already shut, and waited for us to cross the street and board.
At the museum, we came across a couple of Korean monks making woodblock prints of Buddhist scriptures. They were part of the AsiaAlive program, a series of interactive exhibits that feature artisans and craftsmen from different parts of the world, demonstrating traditional art forms before a live audience.
One of the monks asked, through an interpreter, if we'd like to make a print.
"Oh, I'd like to try it," Natalie said.
The monk ritualistically stained the woodblock with black ink, then pulled a rice paper over its surface. Afterwards, he gave us each a piece of foam to rub the paper. As we gently ran the slabs over the paper, the embossed text slowly began to emerge. She held the fragile piece of paper containing the metta sutra (the compassion doctrine) from the edges, like a magician holding a silk handkerchief.
Time was, like sand grains in an hourglass, running out. It was three hours before her flight out of the city.
"Thanks for hanging out with me," she said as we embraced to say goodbye.
Then she stepped into the fog, holding a bag of roasted pistachios from the farmer's market in one hand, the 2,500-year-old Buddhist verses in the other. In a minute, she disappeared into the tapestry of life flowing around us.
What I didn't know until much later was that she had performed solo at the Carnegie Hall twice, left her musical footprints in Austria, received a standing ovation in the Caribbean, and rollerskated 1,500 miles from Miami to New York to raise money for the Children International Charity. During her skate tour, she was hit by cars, twice, but somehow she managed to finished the route.
The night before, at Java Beach cafe, Natalie became intrigued by a term our new friend Sara had used.
"What's a Bodhisattva?" Natalie asked.
"It's someone who's gone far beyond everybody else in his quest for knowledge," Sara said, doing her best to pin down a metaphysical riddle.
"It's someone who's attained enlightenment," I pitched in.
"It's someone who goes around the world and helps other people become enlightened," said Sara.
(The real answer is much too complex and deserving of a longer a discourse.)
"They might even look like normal human beings, like you and me," added Sara. "They make it their mission to help and inspire others."
"Can anyone be a Bodhisattva?" Natalie wanted to know.
"Anyone," said Sara, "a prostitute, a beggar, a bum, anyone."
Who knows? Maybe the Bodhisattva carries a fender guitar on her back and a blues melody in heart.
Early on Christmas Day, I headed out to Starbucks for my Latte. I paused at the intersection where Natalie had been standing just 48 hours ago. The sidewalk was still. The ATM in the wall, the yellow newspaper boxes, and the crumpled paper bags remained mute, like monastic elders in meditation. But I could still hear her voice, coming from a place beyond time and space, like echoes from a past life.
So, on the day the Blessed Child was born in the manger, I reflected on the songs we sung to one another and the smiles we exchanged in the intersections of life.
(Natalie continues her sojourn across America. She shares her melodies at Music Nation. She keeps a blog to chronicle her cross-country adventures. According to her latest MySpace entry, she left her heart in San Francisco.)
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