This popped up on my FaceBook feed the other day – a ray of light in the midst of so much online hate – and I paused to watch the entire thing. Skeptical of such moments, probably because of so much online foolishness, I wasn’t quite sure it was entirely organic. People will do all sorts of things for internet fame, no matter how fleeting or worthless. Yet this seems legit and has yet to be proven an orchestrated event.
It’s a scene from a Paris train station, where two strangers come together for a piano duet that is both raw and magnificently moving. I’m not sure which moved me the most: their almost primal talent, or the way they joined together so easily and comfortably. I’ve read that the original player is Gerard Pla Daró from Spain and the man who joins in is Nassim Zaouche from Algeria. (My favorite part begins at the 4:45 mark, where things begin to coalesce into a much grander thing than the sum of two talented gentlemen, before culminating with a happy finale.)
There is something sublimely poetic about this. Sometimes I forget that there is such goodness in the world, such simple joy in two human beings making something beautiful together. It makes me want to be better. Kinder.
It almost makes me wish I had continued piano lessons. Or just worked harder at them. Either way, this is inspiration and hope and magic, and we need more of it.
