Stories to Tell, Part 1

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.