Journal entry
9 October, 2004
Paris
...It is an overcast day with on again off rain. I walk down into the Metro and enter a crowded car heading for Raspail. My eyes immediately turn to a young man reading. He holds his book two inches from his eyes, which are magnified through thick lenses that have an additional lens attached to the lower part of the heavy Buddy Holly glasses. The small book is about music and symphony (La Musique and Le Symphony). The eyes race back and forth but surely he can only be seeing one word at a time. His tongue peers slightly out of the side of his mouth then a smile, its joyful, nearly a laugh. I see part of a page, musical notes. Can he hear the music? A savant? He is taking it in fast seemingly racing ahead of the darkness for the darkness is coming. Relishing the book his facial expressions are ever changing, joy, struggle, fear, wonder, excitement, expectation, disability, nobility, youth and age. I cannot take my eyes off of him and am grateful that he is unaware of my staring. The train stops, he squints and struggles to see the stations name. I think he has missed his stop. He tries to stand and again looks at the book and sits down. Stop after stop he sits there smiling, lost in the words and music. As I stepped into the street I was aware of the cool, clean air. The rain had stopped and the colors of the city seemed bright and alive in the dull soft light. I too felt alive and hopeful and grateful for all of the small, wonderful things.