The Sweet Little Boy on the Subway

When Hopkins, Stearns and I were riding the subway in New York City a couple of weeks ago, we saw a little boy who cracked us up. I keep thinking about him again and again. The boy was about three years old and was with his mother and slightly older brother. The boy and his brother had been entertaining themselves with lollipops. And then a man entered the subway and began to play his guitar to entertain the riders. The man with the guitar got his attention. As the man played, the boy was absolutely enthralled. He started moving and dancing and nodding his head and playing air guitar with only one hand (he sort of looked like a monkey scratching his stomach). He held his mother's hand so that he could stand upright through the stops and starts of the subway, but his attention was absolutely engaged by the man and the guitar. Every once in a while, he would come out of his trance, notice everyone watching him, get incredibly self conscious and shy. And then the music would go faster and he would lose himself in it again. He couldn't help it. He would dance and scrunch up his face and nod his head.

I think this little boy was particularly intriguing to me because he was utterly absorbed in something in a way I haven't seen a lot of adults get. I like that he absolutely lost himself in the music, even when other people were around (okay, from time to time he was aware of other people existing, but this awareness that he wasn't alone was only passing). I think this is at least part of what we hope to get from art--to forget about ourselves and be absorbed in the work itself, and to just be absolutely delighted and utterly enjoy the work of art.