The Birth of a Song

[Editorial note: I’m kinda breaking my own rules for the #write31days challenge today; this one isn’t an sight or moment that recalls a memory, but just the moment itself—the anecdote was too good to dilute by tying it to another memory. I’ll blame Jonathan Rogers, who asked the other day why I need to connect the moments to memories (I answered, in essence, “cause I said so,” which always goes over really well). He had a good point: that the moments themselves are worth as much focus as the memories. It’s true sometimes; and so, though I’ll try to follow my “Sights and Memories” theme for the rest of the month, I’m fine with breaking it today.]

I sat beside the birth of a song this morning. The coffee shop was quite full when I arrived, so I asked a young man sitting at one corner of a large table if he minded if I took the other end.

He gestured a welcome over the din and I took my seat, photographed my Mayan Mocha like any good hipster in a Nashville coffee house and settled in to write and read and pray for a few moments before church.

He had a notebook in front of him, and a mug of coffee dredges. And, scarved and hair-mussed to perfection, he sat, one leg pulled up with a knee under his chin, humming, tapping a rhythm, and pausing from time to time to jot a few words in the notebook.

Ten minutes in, a young woman approached him. “Excuse me, are you—” The name was lost in Frank Sinatra’s voice soaring up to the final line of “My Way.”

The young man smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

She fluttered for a brief instant, then smiled back, her red lips curving upward toward her dark eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You probably get this all the time. Can I get a photo with you?”

He nodded again, stood, leaned over her shoulder as she pulled out her phone, and smiled for the camera.

She left him alone then and he returned to his work, humming, tapping, jotting.

I sat near the birth of a song this morning. And I will never know which one.