How many of us have ever sat around in a hospital just for kicks? Today I just about did. Everyone there was either sick, visiting the sick or tending the sick. Everyone was busy. I really had no business there, yet there I was, playing my guitar. Surreal. Very.
My music drifted down the hallway to the staff, to the countless hand-sanitizer dispensers, to the patients and their close ones, and followed the footsteps of the overworked nurses.
Grown men were crying; they spoke quietly in Spanish and looked in my direction with blank on their faces. I wonder what, if anything, my slow C-major fugue did for them. The two women who stepped out of a patient’s room were in a better mood; they smiled at me and acknowledged my music.
An old man appeared from another room and, with an expression full of sincerity and a voice filled with gratefulness, said slowly, “Thank you – she’s really enjoying the music. Really. Thank you.” I was touched. Very touched. A few minutes later he produced himself again and nodded, this time revealing a dim smile, one that seemed to hide some degree of pain and anxiety. I hope they’ll be ok. Sigh.
My friend Erik Puslys, also a guitarist, was one of the musicians that helped form this relationship between musicians and MGH. He said to me, “It’s a hospital and everyone’s busy but the people are very nice and they really enjoy it. The patients really love it too because they’re just glad to hear something that isn’t the sound of a machine beeping.”
Wow. If that doesn’t give you chills… well it certainly sent something down my spine.
Erik has been doing this for several months now and this is truly an amazing thing. One wonders, why aren’t there more? Imagine a confinement where the sine wave was your only tune. I can’t. Boston may be a college town but she isn’t short on hospitals and medical centers. There must be a way to develop such initiatives.
Yes, I’m grateful for my health but more importantly, today I felt very lucky to be a guitarist.
