It's so strange when you fall in love. Really in love with someone who loves you the best they can in return. Your brain freezes as if stuck like a scratched CD. You can't remember what was said before and you are completely unaware of what comes next. Except that unlike this skipping CD, you know that whatever comes next will include this wonderful creature that destiny brought your way.

Then times marches on, like it does, and the day to day details start bringing back the noise. And the calm you once had is suddenly only just an echo. The old thoughts return, old dreams resurface, and you find yourself bound by vow to someone for better or worse.

What seemed all of a sudden, I looked around and saw this man, who chose to snip his chance at more children, being a not-so-great parent to a child that did not ask to be born nor was he expected. I realized that I DID want these little creatures of my own after all but didn't want them with him. Major bummer.

Then I began thinking about how all I asked for, in the place we made a nest, was a porch where I could watch the sun set and wave at my neighbors. But this place I called my home has no porch and no one willing to help me build one. Then I realized that the 21 year age difference DOES actually matter after all, just like everyone said it would. I realized, as if in epiphany, that when I become an old white haired, wrinkled woman, too old to do anything but rock in a chair on my porch, I would be doing it in my imagination alone because someone didn't take my one wish seriously.

But worst of all I would be imagining it all alone for perhaps 20-30 years. Barring any premature departure from this life by accident or illness, assuming that as statistics show I lived an extra ten years than a man my own age, the witness to my life will have left me long ago. That I, a relatively strong and vital middle-aged woman, would watch my husband detiorate, alongside my parents, and simultaneouly say goodbye to the three most important people to give me life.

And I realized that there will be no grandchildren to come running up my porch steps, nor children to visit occasionally and never often enough. There will of course be my many cats to cuddle with and they will be my world.

And then again perhaps there will be children running around. But they will be the neighbor's children who will call me "The Crazy Cat Lady" louder than they realize my aged ears can detect.

So despite my love for this man, who gives me what he is able, and who wants me to care for him as he grows old, promising me that money will be plenty (as if this somehow makes up for the loneliness I would feel) I have left him. Left him for the fleeting improbable chance, that I will fall in love again in that way that stops my brain from buzzing, that slows my breath and heartbeat, and that brings me calm. That one far off day, that will come way too quick, I will rock in my chair on my beautiful porch, a purring cat in my lap, and a few more on the floor, I will turn away from the glorious sun setting to see my love, this mystery person, matching me white hair for white hair, wrinkle for wrinkle. Damn It! Who knew this would mean so much when the glow of love or lust loses it power. And that's a whole other blog. Does love always fade? Does it only last a lifetime in the movies?

What a melancholy grouch I am. All brought on by this damned movie that Netflix decided I should watch this Friday night. The Notebook. I do recommend it despite the foul and crabby mood it has left me with. Just take off your makeup first. :)

My dad is the most important and amazing person I have ever met. He's even the most amazing person other people have met. I respect him, admire him, and need him in my life. His doctor discovered a small speck of cancer on his nose, he fell off a ladder and broke a vertebrae, and he is having a hard time swallowing. Since he is also one of the most amazing singers I have ever heard, the last threat hit hard. As time goes on and his children get older, so does he.

I can't bear the thought of living a day without him. I guess for that I am blessed.

Dance, when you are broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you're perfectly free.

-Rumi

Five Years worth of film is expensive to develop at once........

Now and then I am overtaken by a singer to the point where I can't listen to much else. This is rare but I love when it happens. I will obsess over each song......note by note........breath by breath. Most recently, that obsession has been Chavela.

Chavela Vargas has the ability to bring out, in those unique human sounds, the overwhelming emotions of melancholy, lust, grief and, most effectively in my opinion....anger. She's the BEST growler I have ever heard and for that I am eternally grateful. From one breath to the next she can growl out an angry note then send it into a whisper of sweet seduction.

Like Chente says, "Se canta cuando llorar no se puede". When it seems like romantic love is like a tragic comedy of beautiful and frightening masks and I know that tears must but can't seem to fall or for those moments when your heart seem so full that it could explode in your chest and you can't catch your breath......she brushes her hand across my face, grabs my hand, and leads me to a bit of relief.

CHAVELA THE MUSE

In the late 1950s and early 1960s in Mexico, singer Chavela Vargas dressed in men’s clothes, drank and smoked cigars like any man, carried a gun with her, and was notorious for her love of women. Some even say that she once kidnapped a woman at gunpoint, but Vargas denies that rumor. However, she doesn’t deny that she gained her slight limp from jumping out of a window because a woman disappointed her in love. If that’s true, Vargas in her youth was every bit as romantic as the music she sang. In her performances, Vargas dressed in traditionally masculine clothing and openly seduced women in the audience with Mexican folksongs–originally intended to be sung by men.
She became a legend singing Mexican rancheras–lusty songs about women and romance and heartbreak–Vargas publicly came out as a lesbian in 2000 at the age of 81, the same year she was awarded Spain’s Great Cross of Isabel la Católica, the country’s highest honor for artistic production.
Speaking to Madrid’s El País newspaper in October 2000, Vargas declared, "I’ve had to fight to be myself and to be respected. I'm proud to carry this stigma and call myself a lesbian. I don't boast about it or broadcast it, but I don't deny it. I've had to confront society and the Church, which says that homosexuals are damned. That's absurd. How can someone who's born like this be judged? I didn't attend lesbian classes. No one taught me to be this way. I was born this way, from the moment I opened my eyes in this world. I've never been to bed with a man. Never. That's how pure I am; I have nothing to be ashamed of. My gods made me the way I am."
Born in Costa Rica in 1919, Vargas suffered from polio and blindness as a child, and has claimed that she was cured by shamans–a fitting beginning for someone who eventually became one of Mexico’s best-known and best-loved singing legends. Although she went to Mexico when she was fourteen and often sang in the streets, she did not begin singing professionally until the mid-1950s, when she was in her thirties.
She was associated with Mexico’s well-known intellectuals of the time, including Diego Rivera and Luis Echeverría who went on to be President of Mexico from 1970-76. But her most well-known relationship was with bisexual artist Frida Kahlo (with whom she had an affair) and was most recently portrayed by Salma Hayek in the critically acclaimed Frida. "When I saw [Frida’s] face, her eyes," Vargas says on the film’s DVD, "it seemed like she was from another world…I sensed I could love that being with the most pure love in the world."
Working with José Alfredo Jiménez, Vargas released her first album in 1961, Noche Bohemia (Bohemian Night), and has recorded over 80 albums throughout her career.
In the mid 1990s, Pedro Almodóvar helped introduce her to new audiences by incorporating her bold, expressive, and seductive music into his films. "Nobody, except for Jesus Christ can open their arms as Chavela Vargas does," says Almodóvar.