Sometimes, the world turns faster than we can catch up. It's like holding your breath, and upon the release, giving back what you received from your surroundings... the world has changed within the span of a breath.
Listening to Shakira's
Laundry Service's Ready For The Good Times makes me think of how life would've changed for her. Maybe it's just this special intuition that artists and fans have of each other. Both as an aspiring artist and a fan(girl), I think of the path she has trod, with her share of embarassing mistakes and "what on earth did I agree to?".
When she was 17 in 1994, she broke a little of the Colombian music market (still a very small one, probably just a little bigger and more supportive than Singapore's) with 2 albums that flopped commercially and a cheesy soap opera Romeo-and-Juliet style where she found out that she wasn't cut out for acting.
She had a contract for 3 albums with Sony Colombia, and honestly, I don't think anyone has the same opportunities anymore. I must say that the first 2 albums did give her the exposure of making music, an insider's knowledge of the business and where she stood, and where she could go.
Exactly who's allowed to have room for mistakes like that? Guess I won't ever know how much loss there was in 2 ill-received albums.
Simply because she understood what happened during the production of the first 2 albums, she assumed control on the third one, which is now her first official album
Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet).I believe it was the first 2 albums that allowed her to make most of the mistakes in starting out, and Sony probably can't do anything about cancelling it because it was legally binding. As much as she'd like to bury the first 2 albums, together with the telenovela, it still serves as the reflection that I see in myself today.
Who knows? It's the screw-ups and doubts you gotta put up with, professionally and otherwise. Then somehow, as the years pass in an inhale and exhale, grace and self-assured confidence takes over. To make it seem it was all effortless. Seem.
"I would want her to know she didn't waste one second, everytime she let her imagination fly,".
Remembering how the first time I've heard her say that on a good interview, something in me was pushed up in the form of a tear to coat the rim of my eye.
Like a big sister telling you that she's been there and one day, all the persistent faith in the world in a petite body would overpower everything else to explode into undulating waves of passion and essence. Besides the physical frame that we share (me lacking the ass and the hips that can be dislodged at will), the spirit of an artist is one and the same, just expressed differently.
We walk 15 years apart, but the footprints she had left are still fresh on the ground that I press my bare feet into, as if they were imprinted the day before. Such is the relativity of time.
I turn my head, and the girl, about as tall as I am, with jet-black tresses and baby fat gives me a most peculiar wave with her head, nudging me forward. Then ahead, there's the girl with the straight black hair, then another with dreadlocks and coloured bits, and a redhead, then one with wild blonde curls, then a brunette, and the last I've yet to see up close. Her appearance and inspirations changes from time to time, but you could tell she's still very much the same person, still holding on to the dream that a little girl by the beach had envisioned.
So, what do I make of tomorrow? It has become clear to me that day I turn 32 is not far off. I'm not sure if I've drawn a breath yet. Being able to relate to her like this... I hope it's a plausible reason for why I'm easily excitable if we're talking about her. If there's anything I'm sure of tonight, it is that my dreams would not come to nought.
