MY MUSICAL CORKAGE FEE

by Gabriela Barragan

When I leave my house it’s inevitable: I cork my ears with trusty earbuds, sheathed in silicone, to create a steely seal against the blaring cacophony of the outside world. All this so I can continue the heady love affair with my current iPod playlist – from hearth to, say, the Hayes-21, providing my own personal musical soundtrack.

There have been times, pre, mid, and post corking, that I have wondered if it might be a better idea to pocket the headphones and the iPod and walk the streets, or ride the bus, with naked ears.  I get a nagging feeling that sometimes I’m missing out by this constant corking, no matter how much the songs on my current playlist light up my brain.  I’ve been wondering what kind of price I’ve been paying for this musical corkage.

I may be strikingly close to the textbook definition of an introvert, but I’m not one entirely.  I actually do cherish random, spontaneous conversations with strangers – not limited to, but somehow mostly on MUNI – but I rarely invite these experiences.  In fact, I’ve been consistently bent on thwarting them by filling my ear canals with music and podcasts, pretty much effectively nullifying the outside world.

It began innocently enough.  As a newly minted college graduate and San Francisco resident a decade ago, I created my own music bubble to deter “the crazy” – in all its forms – and especially when I rode public transportation after twilight.  After a few random – and awesome – interactions with strangers (likely when my iPod had died or I was in between headphones) it began to dawn on me that I was cloaking myself with a sonic veil, so every now and again I would gingerly stow the music away as if conducting my own personal experiment in approachability.  But this was rare.

Recently, as I was taking a walk through my parents’ suburban neighborhood on the way to a soul-boosting mocha, I crossed paths with a young jogger.  Despite having exchanged an urban landscape for a suburban one, I hadn’t discarded my modus operandi for daily walks: earbuds firmly embedded, my focus was on the sonic landscape rather than the one through which I traipsed, the one with trees and flowers and, you know, other living things.

As the jogger came closer we made eye contact.  He raised his right hand.  In fact, his hand was poised as if to give me a…high five? This stranger?  With, what is that?  A smile stretched across his face?  Sometimes, I’m slow.  By the time it occurred to me to raise my own hand to meet his cheerful intention with a conclusionary, flesh-smacking handclap, a random and transient thing that could have boosted me more than a mocha, the moment passed.  His right hand never met mine because it remained at my side, gripping my iPod, that sonic seal I had created unbroken.  And it sucked.

I regretted my reticence, and I marveled at the stranger who had just dashed by, and his in-the-moment inclination to boost us both with a fleeting act:  a freaking high five, a sort of impromptu namaste.  And then it hit me:  how many times have I thwarted a simple “good morning,” or “hello?” while ensconced in my cocoon of musical bliss?  How many meaningful exchanges have I missed out on that could have been pleasant or thought-provoking punctuations to the daily routine, to otherwise ordinary days?

Last week I was in the same neighborhood.  I offered a nod and a smile to those with whom I made eye contact.  I paid attention.  And if I hadn’t been, I would have missed the flyer.  It was a “Thank You” to those in the neighborhood who had helped return their beloved and heretofore wayward canine.  I stood in front of the flyer for a while, outside of my usual cocoon, hearing the mechanical wooshing of cars going by, squeaking breaks, occasionally thumping bass lines, and fragments of conversations spilling out of open windows.  This flyer was a high five in paper form, and though it was not meant for me, I was absolutely moved by the earnestness of the message.

I’ve decided to build windows in my sonic wall, so it’s less barricade and more permeable membrane, allowing for greater connection/interaction with the outside world.  There’s no changing my clinical (or technical) introversion, but I’ve seen that the outside world, this planet, is a good place and worth connecting with – if sometimes to the soundtrack of my making.

Gabriela Barragan is a recent MBA graduate, freelance writer, marketing consultant, and extremely dedicated musicophile.  She wakes up in either Salinas or Emeryville, CA. Her blog, “House of G”, focuses on music and musings.