As we close,
practically speaking, the first half of our adventure here in Central America,
there’s a few funny nuggets that have been edited out from our writing
productions thus far. For your enjoyment, we hope to submit them to you as we
remember them, in hind sight, so that, like a good wine, they have had some
time to breathe, before they’re drunk-in. Here's the first of a few stories to tell. Enjoy!
The soundtrack of our lives
Dick Clark has said: “music is the soundtrack of our lives.” Thus,
he planted in many of us the feeling that the music we listen to is as
important as the food we eat, the company that we keep, and the landscapes and
sceneries we choose to immerse ourselves in.
When we left the U.S.
we were really intentional about two things in this regard: a-) the amount of
music we brought with us, and b-) the actual selection of music we brought as
well. Fearful that we might lose our bigger, more expensive iPod in our travels
through Nicaragua, we only brought Kat’s Nano, which can hold up to 1,000
songs, as opposed to the staggering number of jams the bigger one can hold.
Needless to say, we were pretty satisfied with the music we had selected, and
we felt that we were going to be just fine for the duration of our adventure.
To give you an image of how we felt, just imagine Jason
& the Argonauts
without the thunderous backdrops of all those mad and megalomaniac gods and
demigods playing their ominous jams before trying to trap him. Yeah, now you
get it…
Just like it happens
in all ancient Greek tragedies, chance would play a role in toying with our
plans. What we had not factored-in in all this rigging of fate was Ario’s
teenage nieces and nephews who were eager to both listen to the music we
brought with us, and of course, they were just as eager to share their music
with us… by attempting to download their tunes onto Kat’s iPod. Oh! Gods of the
musical Hades!
It turns out that in
one of our first weekly visits with Ario, Jenny’s first born, he asked his
uncle Ario to lend him the iPod because he was really enjoying the selection of
music in it. Of course, uncle Ario being such a music lover himself, gave his
nephew the iPod and laconically said: “don’t
do anything with it, other than listen.” In a now forgotten aphorism Oscar Wilde says: “I can resist anything, except temptation.” Ario,
the nephew, was the weak prey of this feeling, and since a new, flashy computer
had been brought to his house, he decided to test the waters, and ERASED ALL
THE MUSIC in our iPod in one single blow, irretrievably… forever.
It was of course a
mistake, and one for which he was truly regretful, but one that couldn’t be
fixed no matter what. He did not know that iPods are only formatted in the
computer in which they’re first plugged in to recharge and be altered. At first
we were pretty upset about it, because honestly we had forgotten the actual
songs we had in there, but we knew we had jewels in there like Silvio
Rodriguez’s albums, lots of Bob Dylan, and a whole bunch of mixes with a bit of
everything to tickle both our fancies.
In an attempt at
being Buddhist about it, we had let go of the music, and felt like we were
doomed to remain without a “soundtrack to our lives,” for the rest of our stay…
we’re speaking of mid-October here people. Don’t let the dismal dimension of
the feeling be lost on you. But, just as we were absorbing the hit, Lo! And
behold! Jim and Jan’s care package from the U.S. arrived to our home, and with
it came a CD-DVR burner and player… the burner, along with the amazing
collection of CD’s (both albums and mixes) that Ario had brought home with him
in a span of over 10 years saved the day, and harmony was restored in the
Universe…
Ario’s mom brought the
collection to us, and it was refreshing and rewarding to find out that some of
the same mixes that Ario had made to drive through the street of San Francisco,
or mixes that held a great deal of meaning in the development of our
relationship, like “Kat Woman,” or “Flamenco Kat,” were here.
A true collaboration
between Jim’s foresight and Betty’s thoughtful care of her own collection saved
us from a life underpinned by endless Youtube downloads whose quality was just
going to frustrate us, Time
After Time, no pun
intended. Well, maybe a little.
