Breathe
By Lourdes Encinas
When I was a child I had an alarm clock radio (a symbol of eighties modernity) that woke me up every morning to go to school.
At night, I would turn it on to go to sleep listening to music. I almost always tuned in to Radio Amor, which transmitted romantic songs of memory from the city of Hermosillo, which I liked because they told stories with a narrative structure similar to that of fairy tales.
My favorite song was Pajarillo, by José María Napoleón. Of course, at that time I didn't understand its true meaning. So I created my own version from his.
The song's lyrics spoke of a young girl who, according to my childish interpretation, used makeup to transform herself into a brightly colored being. Napoleon sang:
Bulk makeup I wore daily / and sold skin at a dear price, / from eight to ten o'clock on a street corner, / I was young and skin, I was pink and thorn.
I did not understand the real meaning of these words. For me it was not a sad story, but a magical transformation.
I never knew who she and the boy who watched her from afar were. In my imagination, I took her place: I watched her from a distance, not daring to interrupt her conversion. Napoleon sang:
It was called ... I don't know ... I never knew, / I never asked him, I never disposed / of his time and his skin, he was a brat / and I only looked at him from well to well.
From my perspective, she was not just a mysterious woman: she was a being in metamorphosis, ready to fly. In my mind, she did not walk from square to square, but literally became a little bird that perched to sing in the windows of the houses.
Her wings were not white, but colorful, like those of butterflies. That is why, in her human form, she wore a lot of make-up so that her plumage would be full of colors before she took flight.
I did not imagine sadness in his story, but freedom. But the song said otherwise:
