Quiero ser un rincon soleado / donde me puede amar a mi amado… donde me puede amar mi amado or donde puedo amar a mi amado…
That is the start to a norteño song because, you know, I might as well write them. Scott Adams has an intriguing view of success, claiming that a person doesn’t have to be a genius at one skill to gain success; what’s needed is a stack of middling competency skills. When those skills are combined, voila, there you are: success! I’m laughing a little at my ridiculousness, but it was true for him. For example, he’s neither a great artist nor a comedian, but he’s reasonably insightful, witty, and apt with a pencil.
My middling competency includes a degree in which I studied both English and Spanish poetic forms and even translated Sor Juana’s poetry for my dissertation. I’ve also written a fair number of poems in both languages. I’m brazen that way. Many years ago, for example, I wrote a poem called Oda al acordeón. If I can find it, I’ll post it, even though it’s no doubt quite awful. It was heartfelt, whatever the case.
I can also sort of play the accordion, I can sing on key if not amazingly, and have over two decades of obsession with listening to the tropes in norteño songs. I can do this! On the other hand, writing actual musical notation is probably beyond me, though I do know the tonic notes on my instrument.
Further updates on life: the golden dragonflies are still following me everywhere. They hover outside my office windows for hours. If not for magical thinking, life would be incredibly boring. They are my friends! They come to visit me particularly! Meanwhile, I’m at that desperate point in my book where I’m so close to the end and not quite there. Currently, my delivery driver and his band of merry fellows (brother and two old high school friends) are at a rotted-out childhood pirate ship/fort, rescuing the heroine, who has been kidnapped, tied up, and gagged. Sadly, the hero has to be be the one to rescue her, so while one friend (Stephen) is swinging from a rope, and he and his brother Lorenzo are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Wilford (the other old friend) is going to set the heroine free, but…wait! Stop! No! Only our trusty delivery driver can do the job. So she’s left bound and gagged until he can manage it.
There are two murders that must be solved, and the heroine’s son must also be saved. The arc of the book reaches a small climax at the pirate ship, the largest climax at the fight with [redacted], and then the most tense but least action-oriented climax at the boy’s rescue. Finis. The dragonflies are now happy.
Oda al acordeón (I should have put this through notepad, as I copied and pasted it from an archaic file format and proceeded to email it to myself):
El gran estuche negro se reposa
en mi cuarto a veces;
Es un sueño, sí, como mariposas
que en crisálidas duermen,
para que, adentro, descansen loas,
sonatas y sonetos de las sombras
y marea, liras mojadas en losas
que brotan de la fuente.
Una vez abierto, sobre los muelles
se derraman las olas,
el sonido, el respiro me vuelven,
la copa poderosa
de licor me llena mi anhelo tenue
por lengüetas que vibran lentamente,
por manos que abren mi voz, un fuelleque, para mí, resopla.
Jill
Al fin, es un sabor, dulce a la boca;
no es nada, sino muerte
que en mi cama, sobre mi piel, se frota.
Son hebillas con cierre,
sombras sin sonetos; todas las cosas
que alimentan sueños, ya no me tocan.
Se transforman en canciones llorosas,
entonces se suspenden.
Quiero que la música nunca cese,
que nunca esté sola,
que el acordeonista nunca me deje
entre palabras rotas,
que su estuche negro nunca lo lleve
de mi cuarto como un amante leve
cuyos dedos son aire de repente,
espectro de mis coplas.
Jill Domschot 