Without an invitation, I joined a group around a park table. No one seemed concerned. A moment later an individual on the far end of the bench from me stood up and lingered at the head of the table, nodded with approval, smiled and walked away. All others on my bench moved down to fill the void that was, and someone wanting to sit where I was then sitting began nudging me to do the same. Interesting game, I thought, and clueless as to the rules or any nuance of behavior, too embarrassed to ask for a hint. Nobody talked. Nobody said a thing. This was listening at some level I could not perceive.
I sniffed, then sneezed. A few glances came my way as if to caution or to explore whether or not my noises were indeed involuntary. All alarm dissolved into satisfaction that it was not intentional. A young man cleared his throat and blushed. I was the only one at the table who did not glare at him until he dismissed himself, surrendering his place on the bench to the person on his left, the others filling in, an old woman just passing by eagerly joining as though an unexpected pleasure.
Ever slow on the uptake, I placed my hand on the table. The older woman who had just join us did the same, smiling at me. I tapped my fingers. She pressed her hands flat, palms tight against the polished top, the pulled them slowly. The squeak was resonant. This kind of movement of hands and feet and elbows and knees had been going on the whole time. I understood the listening posture, the concentration, the thoughtfulness.
This was music from the table. These people were jamming. We were all riffing of the sounds we each made, the chirps of birds ringing under the pavilion. Fingernails pulled against the metal ribbing on the table’s planks. Callouses scraped and massaged, knuckles knocked, fingertips thumped. Everyone gave and took, contributed the sounds and noises each could produce using only body parts and parts of the picnic table.
My time was up. A line had formed at where I began, where I had first sat, and I was all but shoved off the end when I tried a final non-percussive statement. Like everyone else before me, I tarried a few minutes to see what shape the improvisation would take, where it would go. Satisfied it would be fine without me, I continued on my walk, enthused, enriched, even a bit refreshed. Amazed I had spent most of the hour not talking but somehow communicating, I approached that older woman who had joined after me, and who had finished sooner that I would have expected.
“You know, that really gave me a new appreciation for the natural rhythms that occur all around us all the time.”
“Yes. I know,” she said.
“I don’t understand why some serious composer doesn’t notate a piece of music like that.”
“Notate?”
I knew she understood what I meant. She was bright, intense, eager.
“Yes! For a performance.”
“Performance?”
“Yes,” said I. ”That was some of the sweetest and most delicate music I’ve ever joined in making.”
“Music.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I think I have heard anyone say,” she said. ”You have no idea what you are talking about. You’ve completely missed the point.”
She walked away and I have never seen her again.
