Dos mujeres en el jardín, 1933 (detalle)
This past week I was the star of a musical, not exactly Broadway, but a musical, nonetheless.
I have to confess that they are not my favorite genre, with few exceptions, like “The Sound of Music” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” which I can sing from beginning to end.
Let’s say that in general, I find something forced in the fact that the actors talk to each other singing, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
Until last week.
Yes, I must say that I reconciled myself with musicals.
I understood that this uncontrollable and overwhelming desire to speak by singing is totally authentic.
It arises from a joy, from a happy place.
It’s all my sister’s fault who came from Barcelona for a few days.
It all came back, our childhood, youth, home, that warm refuge where we can always return.
We sang from the top of our lungs in the car, at home, on the street.
But the most curious thing is that, on each conversation, a melody overflowed from our reptilian memory, and we could not finish any sentence without completing it with an old song.
This is how the days passed, between laughter and memories.
And I don’t continue because, instead of finishing these lines, I’m going to start singing again, suddenly…
How full the soul remains after a family visit!
PS: I leave you with the link of one of our songs (It is called, Suddenly, De Repente)
Leonor Henríquez (Caracas, Venezuela) Civil Engineer by training (UCAB 1985), writer and apprentice poet by vocation. From her time in engineering emerged her Office Stories (1997), another way of seeing the corporate world. Her latest publications include reflections on grief, Hopecrumbs (2020) (www.hopecrumbs.com) and “The Adventures of Chispita” (2021) (www.chispita.ca) an allegory of life inside Mom’s belly.
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com