I’m walking through downtown Vancouver-Robson St, Burrard St, Granville St-streams of traffic and crowds of unfamiliar faces.  It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night and the last of the daylight is filtering through clouds and polishing skyscraper glass.  My guitar is slung over my shoulder, a fold-up stool in my hand.  I’ve decided to do some busking as part of my new freedom-through-embracing-fear experiment.  My plan is to embrace smaller fears whenever possible so that I can build up my fear-fitness for the bigger ones.

Busking is not a huge fear for me, but I’m not comfortable with it either.  It’s been over fifteen years since I’ve busked and I’m feeling a little shy.  This is a what-will-they-think-of-me fear; particularly, what will those who know or recognize me think of me.  Will they think I’m destitute?  (Wait a minute, I am almost destitute!)  Fortunately, I know next to know one in downtown Vancouver (or unfortunately, if I was ready to embrace the fear of being recognized while busking).  One of the benefits of large cities is greater anonymity, although it’s potentially a lonely benefit.  Then again, my songs are downright precious to me, and a huge part of playing them is making a connection with those listening.  So I’ve got a nice little inner conflict going-I don’t want to stand out, but do want to make a connection.  I walk past several perfectly good busking spots as I sort out the thinking that is creating my discomfort.  Then I hear a guitar ringing out as I walk along Granville and I am emboldened by the connection I feel to the musician.

I finally find a spot on Robson St, one of the glitziest parts of Vancouver.  Robson seems like the perfect street to be noticed but not noticed.  Once I set up my stool and pull out my guitar it doesn’t take me long to get into the joy of playing.  As so often is the case, it’s just the starting that is the hard part.  I’m happy to report that I played and sang most of my heart out (I had forgotten my capo so some of the songs I had to play in a key that doesn’t work well for my voice).   However, my competition was formidable: busses hissing and roaring, stereos booming-boom chu, boom chu, boom chu-cell phones cell phoning, and bright lights and flashy stuff flashing.  Several blocks down from me a mime, with every part of his suit and skin painted completely in gold, was bringing down the house.   And here there I was, playing my funky folk songs on a classical guitar in desperate need of amplification.  Maybe I’ll paint myself gold next time and plug in.

I was succeeding much more at being not noticed than at being noticed until a gentleman with a huge Canada flag on the end of a pole came along.  He parked himself ten feet in front of me and seemed to be listening.  Uplifted by my audience member, albeit and excessively patriotic one, I put a little extra heart into my voice and twang in my fingers.  And gal dern it if he didn’t walk over, drop a Loonie in my case, and say, “keep it up.”  As I watched him leave, I noticed that the leaf on the flag was not a maple leaf; it was a marijuana leaf.
One other person threw a Twonie in my guitar case as he walked by, which brought my total for the evening to a Threenie.  I think I’m ready for a more exposed busking spot, or maybe I’ll move on to other fears.  My sense is that, once I start paying closer attention, I’ll find that there is no shortage of fears to embrace.  For example, I have some discomfort about strolling through the eastside of downtown Vancouver, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada, and one of the worst for drugs and HIV.  I’d like to visit a shelter and a safe-injection site.  That journey will be more than just my moving through fears.  It will also involve my expanding my capacity for compassion and connection.  It’s one thing to believe that we are all one, or that the Divine is in everything, it’s another thing to find it where I don’t want to look.  Speaking of which, there is my fear of trying to meet with the CEO of the Royal Bank to see how he feels about arm wrestling over my credit card debt.  Stayed tuned to see how that goes.