Today, I watched in amazement as a rat chased a green bouncy ball that had made its way out the front door of a house I happened to be just about to walk past. The rat leapt up at the ball as it bounced, making its way across the street, completely mis-timing each spring of its little legs, as if it were the first ever time it had ever chased a green bouncy ball down the street. Of course, it probably was. It was a joyous thing to watch, the rat in all its whimsical, child-like wonder at the ball. you could see the excitement in its little jumps! They really do get a bad wrap. I didn’t quite see if it had come out of the house with the ball or not. Worrying if so? Maybe I’m just overly sentimental in some weird way about these little things. After all it was just a bouncy ball that a child had likely just mis-thrown from within the house, made its way outdoors and a local rat took interest. But it got me thinking. This sort of thing can’t happen often to the common street rat, where regular daily ongoings are interrupted by a rare moment of playful marvelment. When was the last time you felt like this? Stopped in your tracks at events unfolding in front of you for reasons not entirely obvious but sort of special. Pure, unadulterated, chaotic chance, and YOU got to witness it. In Norway, while with friends earlier this year, I stopped and stared at a pair of lambs, nestled into each other, halting me from my deep, downhill strides down the hillside. They stared back at me. They were in the middle of a large, lush green field flanked with pines and set in front of monumental, snow-capped peaks, incomprehensibly towering. I looked at them thinking, “wow, could a scene be more stereotypically, uh, perfect?!” Completely bowled over by the juvenile innocence and the oddly clean ivory wool coats. It looked as if what was in front of me belonged on a postcard, with an airbrushed heart shape framing the lambs, and in cursive, curved text above them it says something like “thinking of ewe”. I waited a few more moments, took it all in, and then turned back to the path and caught up with my friends who had continued on their tramp. I’ll maybe never see anything as perfect as that ever again. I came across the track Palhaço by Egberto Gismonti a couple of years ago while walking in a park nearby my flat. Again, another example of being instantly glued to the spot where I stood (or at least in some sonic sense through my headphones), locked into the moment, the song happening TO me. The theme of purity, innocence, juvenility rears its head again in this experience as well. The track opens with a beautiful melody and chords played on the piano and accompanied by a saxophone, both playing the same melody. After 30 seconds, the instruments then begin to share the space with the sound of children, laughing, playing, roaring with joyful screams, and then the drums come in. The addition of the children turns the piece from a simple classical arrangement into a vessel designed to carry you down a river of nostalgia, a sense of yearning for times gone, and at least for me, happy memories of my own childhood and early family life. It’s one of the most powerful, unexpected experiences I’ve had while listening to music. Probably ever. This song regularly finds itself onto the rotation. Egberto Gismonti is a Brazilian composer born in 1947, and Palhaço was released in 1980 as part of his 15th studio album, Circense. It would be hard to believe that, when writing the song, Gismonti didn’t also have memories of his youth in Rio de Janeiro flowing through his head, whatever feelings they may have induced for him. You simply have to listen to this song. All of these moments have evoked powerful emotional reactions within me and left me feeling that little bit luckier to be kicking around this big world. Each is fleeting in nature and embodies a sense that tiny, awesome (in its true sense) moments will always punctuate our often mundane day-to-day lives, and sometimes when we really need them. Even if it is just a rat chasing a ball down the street. H
