11. The Leafman

The Leafman

As I walk along the streets of Mexico City, I sometimes imagine the valleys between the towering gray buildings are being cut by the tides of people who flow through them. Men and women in dark business suits carry briefcases to offices high above the streets. Young schoolgirls in navy blue uniforms laugh and chatter as they walk together. Mothers clutch children and shopping bags, heading to morning mass or the market.

These valleys are also shaped by those who are not headed anywhere. They are the stones in the river. The unrelenting current flows around them, forced to change direction but without stopping. A man with no legs rolls across the street on a wheeled platform, dodging between taxis and delivery trucks. He chooses a spot in front of the church to beg. An Indian woman, far from her tiny village home, sits on a blanket with her small child. She sells paper sacks of roasted nuts and piles of peaches. We have passed many of these obstacles in the road, never stopping. We stopped for the leafman.

We heard him two blocks before he came into view. Flute-like melodies rose above the din of the traffic, floating towards us, growing louder as we approached his corner. What was this instrument? It was like nothing we had ever heard before.

Sitting with his back against a wall, he looked no different from many others who earn their living with a tin cup. Kindly brown eyes looked up at us from his creased face. His plump body, clothed in a worn wool suit, attested to a degree of success.

The extraordinary thing about this man was his instrument. He was playing a leaf. Holding it tightly against his mouth, he varied the note by the pressure of his fingers and the force of his breath. The melody soared up and down the scale, a seeming impossibility for so humble an instrument. He could make the music reach out down the noisy street or soften it to a whisper.

After he finished his tune, we asked him about his craft. He showed us his pocket of leaves, gathered on his walk to this corner. They looked green and ordinary to us, a common ivy, but he explained that only one type of leaf would work. With obvious pride, he told us the incredible sound we heard was the result of years of practice and that he knew of no other musician who had mastered this art. We dropped a generous pile of coins in his cup and he played another tune.

Mexico City is a city of twenty million people. Most remain nameless and faceless as they flow through the streets. The leafman has stayed with us, and we’re still humbled by a man who found dignity in a single leaf.

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