Longing

Because I'm from a generation that still had role models among mainstream musicians, and because the tickets to Loreena McKennitt's concert here in Madrid were so fucking expensive, I decided I'd just crash into Conde Duque and seize the opportunity to see one of my favourites live at least for once in my life.

Plans A (hiding in the library's loo), B (overhearing the concert from another part of the facility, behind the stage and open to anybody) and C (a glamour) didn't work, so I just stood in the gate, listening to the songs and looking at part of the audience. At some point, a short, grumpy guy elbowed me to the side and left, followed by his partner. Because she and I probably have something in common, something clicked and her green eyes shone when she handed me her own ticket. "¿Quieres?" I can't remember if I looked at her again after looking at the ticket, although I do remember saying "muchas gracias" twice, and I skipped all the way to the standing up zone, right on time to catch the beginning of the last song on the set list, "Amhrán Duit", which is Gaelic for "Your Song"--but in that instance it was really MINE.

Then the set list was over. When she and her nine-piece orchestra came back for the bis, they did an instrumental theme that's probably inedit, because I've never heard it anywhere in my whole Loreena McKennitt collection. And after that, she performed her "Penelope's Song", a supernatural and very human hymn to all the feelings of longing, love and Faith against all odds the wife of Ulysses nurtured for twenty years, waiting and keeping suitors at bay. Impossible to not feel honoured with that song, given that I had longed to meet McKennitt for many long years myself.

Fact is, unless you're a full-time Buddha, permanently in your Samadhi, or you're a miserable, repressed loser, you probably have longed for something, somebody or some place in your life, so Penelope is everything that Humanity means in its most faithful and honest state. Nurture your longing, no matter how far it seems to be. The longing itself is another name for Life.

So, for the homebound lover and her far-sailing beloved, for the Canadian bard and her Greek Muse, for the starry-eyed fan and his stellar idol, here's the song, dedicated to all the Stars that shine between you and the generous strangers, you and the object of your longing, and you my reader and me, in these mysterious, invisible Crossroads that ride the Black virgin fields of all spaces:




Image: Penelope said no to many suitors, and remained faithful to Ulysses throughout his long absence of twenty years. Weave on your visions, and never let go.