I haven’t been on the InstaTwitFace in quite a long time. Folks in my ecosystem know this, and every so often they’ll send me whatever rare gem they might find in that wasteland of digital dystopia.

Like today.

The video is short and shaky, shot across a Nashville airport bar at 9am. A bubbly bartender dances around the foreground, shadowing the only two people at the bar, a man and woman both on their phones. And behind them, the sterile terminal light frames travelers passing by an internal window, extras in a scene played countless times every day. 

In the no-man’s-land between the window and the bar, a young man plays a guitar in front of a microphone, like so many of us do, in what we believe is the requisite paying of dues to get somewhere other than where we are. 

The corner of the coffee shop in the early afternoon, where no one is listening. The club on a Tuesday night, where no one is listening. The airport bar at 9am, where no one is listening. 

The man takes a call and moves away, and now we see that there’s not just one person at the microphone.

There’s two.

The singer has his hat turned backwards and is standing off to the side of the mic, as if he just walked up there.

Which he probably did, on his way to somewhere other than where we are. I’m guessing he saw this guy playing guitar in the corner, and asked if he knew a particular song.

A rhetorical question, because this singer is a legend in the musical circles that matter, his imprint deep on songs we’ve all likely heard.

Like the one he’s singing now, a #1 Billboard hit, accompanied by an aspiring singer-songwriter whose barely-contained incredulity suggests he just won the lottery. 

These moments are all around us, if we look up every once in a while.

Like in an airport bar at 9am, where no one is listening.