Blogging Break. Life Flow. A Gift of Song. Ojalá!

I feel the need to take a break and won’t even try to figure out why. Just know another break calls to me – for however long. For whatever reason. Maybe for no reason. And it doesn’t really matter.

I think it’s important to honor not only the urge to blog, but also the urge not to. (Once again, Blogging without Obligation rears its beautiful head.) So easy to forget sometimes as we feel called to produce the next post and then the next. But for me, when it starts feeling like something I SHOULD do rather than something I feel moved to do, well…then I know it’s time to back off and see what else calls.

Life has flow and sometimes ya just gotta go with it. And right now that flow calls me to look away from the computer long enough to see what else I can find outside my windows – out into the world of new adventures. Not for me to blog about, just to live. Hopefully a cool adventure awaits. ¡Ojalá!

Meanwhile, here’s a little gift NOT at all about me or blogging, but instead about the deep lasting feelings of a frustrated love and one man’s beautiful take on the big “if only” of wishes conveyed by the word ojalá:

OJALÁ

by Silvio Rodríguez

Click for an English translation of the lyrics:

I found this on songmeanings.net (scroll down) and the person who offered the translation (Emiliana84) admits it’s rough since she translated from Spanish (Rodriguez is Cuban) to Italian to English! Still, this at least gives you the feel of Rodriguez’s transcendent poetry and romanticism:

If only the leaves stopped brushing your body while falling
So you didn’t turn them into crystals
If only the rain stopped being a miracle falling on your body
If only the moon could rise without you
If only the Earth didn’t kiss your steps

(Chorus)
If only you didn’t have that piercing stare
Such precise words, such a perfect smile.
If only something happened to take you away from me:
A blinding light, a sudden shot cold as snow.
If only at least death would take me,
So I didn’t have to see you so much, so that I stopped seeing you all the time,
Every second, every fleeting vision:
If only I couldn’t touch you, not even in my songs.

If only the dawn’s screams stopped falling against my back (?)
If only that voice (the dawn’s voice) forgot your name
If only your steps stopped echoing against the walls
If only you took my desire away with you when you disappeared
Back to your ancient government of dead people and flowers.

(NOTE: The last line has puzzled many. A clue to his lost love’s nationality? Or an embedded political allusion. Not sure. Just love the whole piece.)

 

 

Tags: "Silvio Rodríguez", music