It's also a love story. Strangely the characters never address each other with names and they're listed in the credits as boy and girl. Maybe that's to remind us of our anonymity. We think we know each other on this path, but ultimately we are all alone.
Last night I was playing on Chestnut Street. It's a very interesting experience. I start playing at 8 PM, when it's still light out. It's a laid-back feeling at that time. Almost family-friendly. People are still out with their children and just beginning to digest their dinner. It's still an all-ages crowd. Shortly after I started playing a very thin woman walked up to me with a huge but worn smile. She seemed very sweet but a bit rough around the edges, like she'd experienced a little bit more of life than most of us. She stood and listened, smiling constantly. At the end of my song she said she really liked my voice and what I was doing. I thanked her. She then said that she was a singer, too, and had been compared to Janis Joplin. Well, Janis happens to be one of my favorite singers, mostly because of her energy and grittiness and how she lived her short life on the edge till the very end, burning quickly and hotly, like a comet. Anyway, I took a chance and said, "That's cool. Would you like to sing something?" She lit right up. We agreed on Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." Her voice was just as rough as her appearance, deep and gravelly, perhaps from too much hard living. She shut her eyes when she sang and belted out her song, not quite sure of the lyrics, but filling in where necessary. A true performer. We sang a few more parts of songs, as she really didn't know all the lyrics to any one song. She told me her name and then pulled out her state-issued i.d. card to prove it. She said she was Irish and her name was Danny, Daniella. Like Danny Boy, she said. Pure Irish and proud of it. I played a few more songs, then she said it was her last night in Philadelphia, and that she was alone. She had been alone and lonely all her adult life. She wondered if she would ever find love or someone to share her life with. We talked about how we are all alone in many ways; we enter this world alone, often spend our lives alone, even if we're surrounded by friends and family, and then we leave this world alone. There was a depressing pause in our conversation and I began to noodle around on the guitar softly. Then she grabbed her ziplock bag of belongings and smiled. She shook hands. The lost look in her eyes got to me. Deeply. Her worn and tired smile. I wondered where she was going to sleep tonight. Under what circumstances. And where her path would lead her after Philadelphia.
There are no happy endings. Even the film "Once" ends on a note where we all end up sometimes not realizing our dreams entirely and love can be a compromise.
It's the next morning. I slept in a warm bed last night after busking. There's food in the fridge. I live with the woman I love.
I wonder where Daniella is right now....
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