and Words
Con los ojos cerrados, (with our eyes shut)
Como presintiendo (as if we anticipate)
Que horrible es el mundo que vamos a ver… (the cruel world that we’ll see)
Con el llanto en los labios (with a cry on our lips)
Como lamentando (as if we lament)
Llegar a una tierra que buena no es… (arriving to an awful place)
Con las manos cerradas, (with our hands clenched)
Como preparados (as if we prepare)
A dar duros golpes; morir o vencer… (for a fist fight, victorious or dead)
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
I was about seven years-old at the time; we still lived in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, my dad got each of us a different album from Julio Iglesias in cassette. This one (“Soy…”) was mine. I’m not sure why he decided to get us these cassettes nor if any of us had an appreciation for music, especially since I still struggled to separate Spanish and Chinese words, but nonetheless this one was mine.
Yet this simple gesture started a lifetime of memories… disjointed, yet stitched together like colors in a kaleidoscope.
I’ve often marveled at the verses from music in different languages. Spanish music is more poetic than music in English. I could simply be a function of the music I listen to, but it does have me thinking about the differences.
Is it a function of the language? Is Spanish more expressive in the way that fails in English? Are there simply constructs that fail to be adequately expressed in other languages (nuanced in the way that ‘te quiero’ and ‘te amo’ are different)? Or is it perhaps a cultural difference? Is my life here in the states one that encourages a no-nonsense, almost ruthless, utilitarianism? Where poetry and self-expression are to be mocked? We’ve all heard the expression ‘artsy-fartsy’ or ‘artsy-pansy’, right? Is that at play here?
“Así Nacemos” is the song that I remember most from this album. In my mind, I translate this, going with the flow of the song, as “As thus, we’re born”, which certainly fits for perhaps the most memorable and appropriate song from my first album. As you read through my translation, you’ll see how it speaks about being born (and indeed living itself) is as filled with constant struggle and plight.
And please forgive my translation, my Spanish reading level is that of a fourth grader. 😉
Maybe it’s the Latin culture in me that sees the poetic parallels between a song that speaks to how we’re born and the start of a lifetime of listening to music. Or it could be that I may somehow find some cosmic significance to something in this album where there is none. Either way it’s meaningful to me and it reminds me of my humble beginnings.
I once heard someone describe that fluency in a language can be demonstrated when you no longer need to think of an idea in an intermediary language before understanding it. You see the word ‘red’ and you can picture the color; is this true when you see the word ‘rojo’? This is certainly true for me and Spanish.
As I hear the first few notes, I’m moved by just the anticipation of the memories. Somehow the words resonate with me more often than they don’t. Meanwhile, we can reflect upon what occurred today in the way that we forget mundane details… Did I brew coffee this morning? Did I brush my teeth? I must have though I honestly can’t remember it.
Hearing this song is not like that, at least not for me. Maybe it’s Julio Iglesias’s Castilian Spanish, which, to my ear, begs for attention. It takes me back to those moments in Puerto Rico.
Our home in Rio Piedras was also my dad’s restaurant. The front facing the street was the dining room with only a small collection of tables, but it was ours. My dad took great pride in it. He literally built portions of it with his own hands.
In the dining room, we had a vending machine for cigarettes; it always seemed misplaced to me. You put your coins in and it had these long handles that you pulled hard in order to get your selection. It may have been all mechanical, not requiring any power at all. Anyone of any age could simply walk in, insert the funds, and walk out with a pack of cigarettes. Naturally, you would never see one of these today.
Our house, both the residence and the business lacked air conditioning. Puerto Rico is often hotter and even muggier than even Florida. During the summers the heat was a devastating force, much of what you’d expect from a sauna. Still it was the only thing that we knew.
Along the front was also a large ice cream churner, it also served as our front counter where my mom took orders. It had storage for about half a dozen large metal canisters for ice cream on the right. On the left was the ice cream maker; it housed these huge metal implements that looked more medieval torture devices. Well, they looked huge to me, I was just a kid. I think it was my mom who ran the ice cream machine. It was mesmerizing to watch though I only remember seeing it run a few times.
It was behind this ice cream counter where my sisters and I often congregated and listened to music. We consequently played music through a dinky, brightly colored cassette player. I think it was a Panasonic RQ-304s, the pictures are similar to what I remember. The cassette loaded from the front through a smoky, semi-translucent door, where you could barely see the reels spinning as it played. The music was tinny and barely audible over the sounds from the kitchen and the dining room, but that’s what we had.
That’s how we first started listening to music and to Julio Iglesias.