The morning commute
...is my charity contribution to this city and often an enormous test to my patience. When I recently moved to a 17-minute commute from work I thought that would be a short very doable daily metro ride, especially because I do not need to change lines and I can sit, read, observe, listen to music…or so I thought.
Well, I do listen to music indeed. Accordionist, Slavic and Roma singers, guitar players, drum players…the longer the ride, the wider the variety of free concerts you get inside the metro train. Sometimes those are really sad concerts from really sad people. I am intrigued by the lives of the singers who beg within the metro, their wrinkles and damaged hands insinuate hardship. Their dark voices, dirty nails, greasy hairs combed with enormous dignity, eventual golden tooth and unfashionable pullovers. Somebody should write their stories. Singing while begging deserves a coin, even if small. The worse the singer, the more I feel I need to give him/her some euro cents…I might be subsidizing an artless bunch of people who do not let me read the paper in the morning. Or I might be just doing the right thing to do.
Well, I do listen to music indeed. Accordionist, Slavic and Roma singers, guitar players, drum players…the longer the ride, the wider the variety of free concerts you get inside the metro train. Sometimes those are really sad concerts from really sad people. I am intrigued by the lives of the singers who beg within the metro, their wrinkles and damaged hands insinuate hardship. Their dark voices, dirty nails, greasy hairs combed with enormous dignity, eventual golden tooth and unfashionable pullovers. Somebody should write their stories. Singing while begging deserves a coin, even if small. The worse the singer, the more I feel I need to give him/her some euro cents…I might be subsidizing an artless bunch of people who do not let me read the paper in the morning. Or I might be just doing the right thing to do. 
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