The music in the air

Really I want to talk about problem-solving and how T & I see things differently, and how I am learning to reconceptualize my approach to Big Life Decisions. But, see, it's 11:15 and I haven't even cracked open the Corporations case book that I took off work at noon to start outlining.

Um. Yeah.

So instead, I will mention, briefly, a beautiful little observation I made on my walk home from work this afternoon. The thing I like about living in the Big City is the music that randomly fills the air. And when I say "randomly" "fills the air," I really mean it. You can be walking along a city block one minute, turn a corner and suddenly feel like you're in a movie complete with soundtrack.

Obviously, this happened to me today or I wouldn't be writing about it. I was crossing the main street that cuts divides the city in two, when all of a sudden this beautiful jazz music was floating in the air. This baffled me, as it seemed to be the exact location where earlier this past winter, Christmas music inexplicably eminated from the tops of the tall buildings lining the block. Where was this random music coming from?

As surreal as it was, I just kind of accepted it because here in Big City, it's a pretty common occurence. I step outside my house, and there are church bells ringing beautiful drawn-out melodies. Everywhere I go, the cars keep me up to date on the latest hip-hop. Even though I'm not in NYC, I could sing the words to "Empire State of Mind" before I'd ever listened to it on the radio. Don't get me started on Nicki Minaj.

My favorite random music is at the train station by the law school. This particular station is underground, designed like a giant tunnel and has two express tracks whose trains whizz by instead of stopping. It gets very VERY loud. And when I take the train in the late afternoon, it's packed with high schoolers, law students and the usual riff-raff. So on top of loud, it's uncomfortable. And smelly. The train stations here are always smelly.

It's always during this least pleasant part of the day that some mysterious person (working the token booth, I assume) pipes classical music into the waiting platform. Are you even allowed to play music on the train platform? Do these stations even have speakers? Where does it come from? No idea. But it is the most soothing, calming and welcomed classical music I have ever heard. When that music is playing, the trains flying by aren't quite so loud. The masses of bodies aren't quite so massive. The wait isn't quite so long. The ubiquitous puddles on the ground look less like urine. And so forth.

And that is what I appreciated today about the place I chose to go to law school. Because even if it's smelly, it's rude and it doesn't take care of its things, this Big City has its own kind of charm.