Nostalgia

There is a nostalgic place activated by the synths in the beginning. The loop feels like climbing the same set of steps over and over again. The harmonies start and expand to what sounds like 6 voices surrounding me. I feel like I’m almost transported back to that dorm room on these rainbow slides like a time travel sequence with the horns announcing the landing. The music creates the conditions for your memories to flood in before the lyrics tell the full story.

The drums are what activate my sacral chakra. Keeping my legs still is a challenge as my feet start to move in that familiar pattern. As soon as they come in, I’m full body dancing in my head. I feel like I jump back into my 19-year-old body and am dancing with my friends again. The lyrics from the opening repeat, but now you’re dancing through that memory.

There are parts where the piano sounds like it’s in conversation with the lead vocal, which feels reminiscent of Periodico de ayer or Triste y Vacia by Hector Lavoe. When the drums cut out, and you just get the piano, especially, bring up happy memories watching my friends eat it up on the dance floor, The cowbell is holding the rhythm down with some interplay with the horns. The entire arrangement is so satisfying.

The image that it conjures up for me was 19-year-old me in my dorm room, dancing to La India, Celia Cruz or Joe Arroyo in my undies as I tried to study for a math test or write a last-second paper in the middle of the night.

The Memory the Music Unlocks

Let me set the stage so you can join me in the mental image as I listen to the song on repeat.

It was a private room in Tyus Hall, at the University of West Georgia, because I was an RA. The walls were a strange yellow color, and the floors were a school cafeteria tile. I had a few brightly colored rugs, in stark contrast to my bedspread.

On the walls, I had posters of the Backstreet Boys, RBD, and Aventura. The rest were little handwritten lyrics from songs that I liked. For example, “Give you the world” by the DEY., or So this is love from the Cinderella movie (Cheetah Girls version), I was hooking up either a guy whose name was Anselmo. He gave me a bracelet made of wooden beads and wooden slabs with little Puerto Rican flags on the slabs. I still have it. I liked him. It didn’t last long; I was 19. HAHA! I had like 4 “boyfriends” that year and I swore I loved them all.

I was an active member of the Black Student Association and the Latin Cultural Society. I had some of their flyers up in the room as well. I taking a ballroom dancing class that year. I learned how to waltz and samba in that class. I also remember dancing Bachata in the hallways of a different dorm with my then friend, Christy. I had the Haitian flag all over my room.

This is the dorm room where I learned more and more about myself. I came out to my friend, Sherie, in that dorm room. I think she is probably the only person I formally said I was “Bi” to. I was so afraid, and she did not care. HAHA! I was literally hiding under the bed when I said it.

The song slides me back into a space where I learned to be myself, without shame and reminded me that she was fully expressed. Unafraid to be exactly who she was. It was a period of active discovery, a season of learning how to love people, my culture and the cultures of my friends and lovers, music, movement and most of all myself.

The Metaphor of dancing

As I mentioned before, the lyrics are about a lost love and about living life to the fullest. There is also an energy of I’m not done. Though, as I’ve listened to the song a ton in the last few days, writing this piece, I’m starting to ready it differently.
Yes, there is an air of Amargue. The I lost my girl, my heart is broken, I cant go on, I’m not done. But the central message is not the looking back. To me the central message is loving people properly. There are no regrets in that space. it’s about learning to love well.

There are quite a few metaphors for life or relationships throughout this piece. Dance as a metaphor is the most prominent. I think about latin dance or partnered dances specifically. One partner leads and the other follows. More often than not, the male partner leads. I remember dancing kompa with my good friend, Max, when we were in our late teens early 20s. That was when I really learned how to follow my dance partner. He was already a human that I trusted. I knew he was same and so I let him led in the dance and had an amazing time.

I think dance an interesting metaphor in this song because the woman is the is the dance instructor. She was the one leading. She was the one showing him how to be “ a man” in the space of their paring. There is a point where he says, “there is a new step I want to show you”, implying that he will lead if given another opportunity. I find that to be incredible storytelling. The speakers notes, that he sees things that he could do differently, that he is willing to teach her too.

What is constant in your life?

In the opening Bad Bunny starts with the line “I used to think I would grow old with you.” Like there was an expected view of the life they would have together. I think we all have people, places, and spaces where we feel that. It could be a former partner or it could be a be a chat with a former friend. That we didn’t imagine life without them. they were part of our perfect cast.

I had a best friend from high school who I felt that way about. I met her when I was 15 or 16 at the interest meeting for soccer. We both sucked at it, but we had fun all season. I loved her and her family, and I stopped talking to her. My reason was because her behavior and destructive choices. It broke my heart to see someone as beautiful as she was making those choices and I couldn’t watch her keep destroying herself, so I walked away.

I opened that door again a few months ago. I didn’t regret it, but I saw that there were broken things that were never my responsibility to fix, but I also realized I was too broken to even begin to try to carry her load with her. But I don’t regret it in the same ways I did before.

I thought I would grow old with her, I thought I would grow old with my ex-husband, I thought I would grow old with my last boyfriend, but life often teaches lessons. I wasn’t a constant for myself, so I could not expect that from anyone else.

Art has a way of helping us open our minds and reflect about what it is really want from our experience in this life. Especially as we know that It will end one day. What actions are we taking, what were we believing in? What are we working towards?

Living in the NOW

The line where Bad Bunny sings “ en otra vida, otra mundo podrá ser, en esta solo queda irme un día y solamente verte en el atardecer” The imagery of sunset to me is the Inbetween. It’s not day or night. It’s not death or life. It’s a dream world. It’s a liminal space. He goes on to say What Marc Anthony and Celia Cruz tells us, Life is a party, but the party ends. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Then the line ”Mientras uno está vivo, uno debe amar lo más que pueda” comes from Puerto Rican actor and filmmaker Jacobo Morales. to me it gives the same energy. I also believeis the thesis of Baile Inolvidable. That’s what makes the story. Loving and acting in love.Living life fully expressed.

As I hone my story telling skills, I am finding that even villains in films are motivated by love or the fear of a loss of love. Even if it is a selfish love of self, or a view that leads to harm as loving, and there is an ache in understanding that. That we are all loving in the best way we have learned how to.

From your dreams to real life

When we get into the third go round of the verses, he sings “ver pa'l cielo a ver si te veo caer.” instead of “y solamente verse en el atardercer”. I like the “ver pa’l Cielo” line because it makes me think of that one pick-up line where folks are like, “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” as if you say you’re an angel. But the change communicates a different relationship to the experience. It’s moved beyond the liminal space or from paradise back to earth. Watching you fall from heaven, leaving my dreams and entering my real life. Maybe anchoring the life we thought it was to the life it actually was.

I think a bit about my last relationship that for the longest, I thought, I gave away something beautiful, but if my intuition was telling me I needed to go it must have been for a reason. He did make me feel good, I did miss him sometimes. I spent time comparing other potential partners to him in ways that were unfair, But setting things in relief, He was a piss poor communicator. Handsome, yes, a good lover, sure. But it was guessing a lot of the time or being surprised by things that made me uncomfortable at the last second. It almost felt like a game, I wasn’t interested in playing. though he also very much felt like an angel come down to me at that time in my life. Though imperfect, he raised the bar for me, exponentially.

Not being able to let go completely

The next chorus has a lot of Adlibs beyond the “ No the puedo olividar, no the pied borrar” It’s almost like ruminating again. Like I’m not done with this round. I’m not done with this space with you. ”Hay un paso nuevo que quiero enseñarte” I have a new step to teach you. Not wanting to let this person or experience go, but not knowing how to get your brain or body to move. “En las noches ya ni puedo dormir, lo que hago es sonarte” calls back to the liminal space we were in before. Trying to understand what happened, why did this door close before I was done?

In the bridge you hear him dive further into the nostalgia, the memories of what living with that love was like. Going as far as to say, the new girl is good, but she’s no you. The callback to Titi me pregunto with the line “ Tenia mucha novia, pero como tú ninguna” That music video ends in a wedding by the way. As though to say, I would have married you if I knew.

The other line that I love in this song is “Ya no tengo mi sol, me paso en la luna”
I wrote a poem when I was in a fight with a man that I was in love with, which anchored me as the center of the universe. I consider what are the things we can count on, what stands the test of time. The sun and the moon are always in the sky. The moon is ever changing but it reflects the sun’s light.But also being on the moon as metaphor or moon walking as metaphor is interesting here as well. Like just floating through life, cause I cant anchor myself to anything earth side without you.

Visual Storytelling in the Music Video

The mini film ( as Michael Jackson would call it) follows and older gentleman to a dance class. He’s moving slowly, and using a cane. He signs up and then the class is starting. You see all the students lined up and the camera pans across them. each one looking excited or nervous to be there. When you pan back, the Old man is young again. Benito plays this well, as the older man walks in with a cane, needing support to talk, but he is dancing without it. The instructor then shows the class the basics. front to back and side to side steps. The Instructor give special care to the old man as she helps him get the footwork down.

They then add in turns. You watch the instructor walk him through each step. He feels comfortable with her. As the class goes on, they dance in pairs. the instructor starts by dancing with him, and then they switch partners and yo see him looking to the instructor. I wouldn’t call it a longing look, butas a shy girlie myself, I looked like a, “ this scares me, please stay” look. In the next scene you see them dancing in a circle. almost like a cipher. Everyone standing around clapping and watching as a couple does the moves in the middle of the circle. They all seem to be having fun. doing their best movies as they enjoy the class.

Then it’s the old man’s turn. He seems nervous. then the image of the video blurs and goes dark as his dance partner walks into frame. They meet in what I assume is the dance floor, but it looks like a dream sequence. The woman is in a beautiful golden sequin gown I and he is in a powder blue suit. Very similar to the one in the NuevaYol video. The dancers are moving to the beat in the dark with a spotlight on them. He is leading the dance.spinning here, pulling her in close, letting her flow her own flow and rhythm and drawing her back in.

The next scene you see a pianist in a close up of his hand playing before the scene pans out to a full band and the two leads dancing in the midst of them. The performance sequence fades into them back in the dark room dancing in the spot light, going back and forth between the two.The dance ends and the woman walks away and the man turns to see a crowd cheering for him. As the song ends you see the older man again, smiling.

I think you have two POVs to watch the video through. The first is that of the older man, nd the other is as a spectator, watching from behind the fourth wall. I choose to watch from the perspective of the protagonist, but staying outside is a valid choice as well. I like considering how he might be feeling, what he is thinking and what might be moving him in those moments through out the dance class. I think the key is how he sees himself as he is in this dance class.

Once you get to the dream sequence that the song ends on, you understand how he sees himself. He’s performing and she’s on stage with him dancing in the periphery. He returns to dancing with her rather than presuming, but as the dance ends he hears the applause and it returns to the man’s external world.

Whether he became young again, or was just feeling young again is up for interpretation as well. I think it is a question of understand how we view external aging in society versus what is going on in our internal world. If you ask me how old I am, I sometimes say 12. Not because I am legitimately 12 years old, but because that was the age that I discovered the things that I love, and that was the age I discovered my sense of justice. I’m not 12. I have far more sense than a 12 year old, and yet, She has a lot to say about my day to day experiences. She’s the one in the dream sequence for me.

19 is where I started really exploring love and relationships as a concept. Not just romantic love, but connection and relationships. When im in the dream sequence, that is who is there with me. So as I watch the camera pan back to a younger man in the class, it’s still the same people. he is just now back at the age where he felt the most himself, the most alive.I wonder what age that will be for me. I genuinely hope that it isn’t 19.

While I do think it’s the Old man’s internal world we are visualizing in the music video, I also think is his memory. In the music video for NuevaYoL, There is a man wearing a similar Powder blue suit. I wanted to see if there was a woman in a sequin dress at the wedding reception, cause that would have GAGGED ME!. But there is also a circle where people are dancing in the middle as well, so that will be my easter egg.

The video seems to argue: While alive, continue loving. continue dancing. continue learning, continue showing up, cause when you land your plane, you will here the applause.

Why the Song Stays With Me

Why exactly did this song activate my heart, solar plexus, and sacral centers? Why does it feel like a warm hug from my younger self? Because the song is about experiencing love and Loving through everything and in everything. it reveals what having the philosophy of showing up in love everywhere you go does for you. The song for me links me back to the place where that journey of learning how to love well started for me.The music reconnects me to a period of discovery. The lyrics provide symbolic language for thinking about love and time. Whether that be dancing, or consistency .

The video argues that love remains an active practice throughout life. I think about the moments I had at 19 and the people I loved, who didn’t or couldn’t love me properly, and I don’t really carry regret for it. it makes my art better, it makes my story better, it makes my character stronger and it builds my capacity to love, create, dance, learn, and connect in this present moment.

Through the years, we have seen a number of tropes emerge from the formulaic recreation of successful Hollywood stories. These tropes make it easier for writers, directors, and producers to tell stories from points of view that they may not easily identify with. It also allows audiences to better understand characters and how they move through society and the story.

This type of writing can enable studios to count on the film being a success due to the reception of other films using those formulas. These formulas worked to create stereotypes for women, Black and Indigenous folks, and other people of color. These groups are often used as props in the development of a male or white lead’s story. According to Molly Haskell, an American film critic and author. “The preoccupation of most movies in the forties […] is the man’s soul and salvation rather than the woman’s” (424). According to Braudy and Cohen the central argument of Haskell’s essay is that films find their shape through the presence of strong female stars and that Haskell was really pushing back against the emphasis on the idea that male actors as artists who carry films all by themselves.

Haskell uses examples through films of how the various women actors, such as Doris Day, Jean Arthur, Donna Reed, and Katherine Hepburn, bring their interpretations of femininity to the characters that they played. Haskell says that the male character’s development relied on the women as a point of reference. This is still used for the arch of male characters today. Women are often referred to as the moral compass for films and television.

In her analysis, Molly Haskell explains the characteristics of the most commonly seen stereotypes in films. They are the superwoman, the bad girl, the superfemale, the enterprising woman, and the sex goddess.

The superwoman is “a woman who […] has a high degree of intelligence or imagination, […] adopts male characteristics in order to enjoy male prerogatives, or merely to survive” (428). The superfemale is similar, but different. She is feminine and flirtatious. She is too intelligent and ambitious, and when she gets bored, she is a mean girl. The bad girl is the character who does things she knows she should not do.

The enterprising woman is a woman who wants to work. Haskell discusses the period during World War 2 when a lot of women went to work. They want to stay at work, and when the men returned from the war, however, a lot of women were fired. Haskell notes that films in that era looked at the tension that happened thereafter. It was a push to send women back into the household rather than them working.

The sex goddess is the woman who kind of pulls men under her spell. Haskell talks about this in reference to “the jinx” (430). These are women who use their sexual wiles to seduce men to get what they want. Alternatively, they are women whom men desire greatly and who have a lot of men chasing after them or fawning over them.

While these stereotypes still exist, they exist in a hybrid form. Woman no longer just a man’s girlfriend, wife, mother, or sister. She isn’t just a representation of his morals or his maturity. She is her own person. Films today attempt to create identities for women characters apart from how they relate to male characters. We are able to view and create more films with women as the lead actors. While the films still heavily rely on various stereotypes to travel through the story. They tend to present hybrid forms of those stereotypes in an attempt to create more complex characters.

I will be exploring the film, Someone Great, and looking at how each character pays tribute to the superwoman, superfemale, bad-girl, sex goddess, and the enterprising woman mentioned as defined by Molly Haskell.

In a comedy, filmmakers are able to poke some fun at the stereotypes that happen in various genres. Someone Great is a coming-of-age gal-pal comedy that gives the actors room to make light of the heaviness of growing up, of being vulnerable in relationships, and of letting go of the things that we think make us who we are and embarking on a true journey of self-discovery. All under the cover of jokes about drugs, sex, and stereotypes.

Jenny, played by Gina Rodriguez, is the main character. She is initially introduced with her love interest, Nate, as they walk down the street talking about the concert they just went to. They meet up with her friend’s Blair and Erin, played by Brittany Snow and DeWanda Wise, respectively. Her friends support her and Nate’s relationship.

Jenny is a writer, Blair is a social media strategist, and Erin works in real estate. All three are navigating stages of relationships, and they go on an adventure around New York City to get concert tickets, get marijuana, get high, get laid, and maybe find some sense of themselves through the process. Some scenes are intensely hilarious, and then there are scenes that are a little cringey. There are also spaces where you see the characters develop beyond the bad girl, superwoman, enterprising woman, femme fatale, sex goddess, and super female stereotypes. However, there are still moments where you can clearly see the characters embodying these tropes throughout the movie.

Jenny is introduced as the superfemale. She is highly intelligent, she is a University student, and she is quite boy crazy. She also embodies the “Bad girl” in other ways. Typically, in films, it’s for the male gaze, but in Someone Great, I noticed, it is for her friends so that they can recreate some of those fun times that they had when all of them were engaging in debauchery. Jenny’s story arc shows her becoming a superwoman. She is still highly intelligent, but now she is highly ambitious. Jenny gets the job of her dreams, clear across the country, and Nate, whom she calls her person, does not want to go on that journey with her. The film follows her as she first tries to mute her feelings and then, in a very pivotal montage, she accepts those feelings and decides that it’s her choice to heal from them so that she can be the best version of herself.

You first see Erin with her “not quite” girlfriend. They are in a very intimate space, and the “not quite” girlfriend is seeking greater intimacy by asking Erin to meet her friends. However, because Erin experienced heartbreak in the past, she was not prepared to be vulnerable with this new partner. So, she tries to distract her “not quite” girlfriend in order to avoid having the conversation about increased intimacy. You also see through Erin’s story arc that she is holding on to her youth as hard as she can. She wants to party and live free and not take on more responsibility than necessary. You see this through the messiness of her room, the fact that she was very ready to call out of work without any hesitation, and that she was happy to be in the space of irresponsibility. I would say that this shows that Erin is a superwoman-type character because she takes on a lot of masculine traits in order to get the same sort of excitement that a man would have. She shrugs off responsibilities and just wants to be with her friends in the same way that a lot of male characters have been written in the past. Erin is also a sex goddess because she uses sex to get out of having a difficult relationship with her partner. Through an exchange with Blair, you learn that she also uses sex to avoid feeling her feelings. By the end of Erin’s story, you see that she has matured quite a bit through this journey of drug use and debauchery. She’s realized that she’s ready to take on more responsibilities and to have greater intimacy and more vulnerability inside of her relationship.

Finally, there is Blair. Blair is seen at the opening of the film as the good girl. She does what she can to make safe choices. She has a plan for her future. She wants to be married by 30, and she stays in a relationship that she isn’t really happy in because she has a plan. The running joke throughout the film is that the girls want “Bad Blair” to come out and play with them on Jenny’s last day in New York City. Bad Blair does, in fact, come out to play. She engages in all the mess that her friends are also engaging in. This includes drug use as well as sexual intercourse in highly inappropriate places. However, this was part of her journey of loosening up and letting go of the idea that she had to be perfect in order to achieve her goals. I think that this character falls in line at first with the Super female and transitions into the superwoman character.

While the women in this film are not in perfect alignment with the the tropes am proposed by Molly Haskell they do meet a lot of the criteria of being super females or super women With all the complexities I’ve being a 20 something and a large city trying to figure out who you are and what you want to do in your life while coming to grips with the fact that things are going to change and that change is good.

Bad Bunny is an EVIL GENIUS and I think I love it.

Okay, so hear me out.

Yesterday, I wrote on threads it was time for me to go seek out this ADHD diagnosis formally cause my hyper focus on Benito had ended. I gathered all the information I needed, and I was satisfied. He is a cute celeb whose artistry I admire, but not more than honing my own skills.

But here we are again. He has triggered my need to understand him and how he creates art, AGAIN.
”How?”, you ask.
Well… I’m scrolling on Instagram, ahead of my afternoon nap, and Ojitos Lindos from Un Verano Sin Ti is playing. So, Li Samuet’s voice is like crack to begin with, and then the beat drops, and I feel transported to a new place. My parietal lobe is activated, and my curiosity is piqued. How are they doing this? How am I addicted again. Why Am I writing about this man, AGAIN.

My immediate thought is that they must be recording at a different frequency than the 440 that is common in the music industry. So, I googled it. No, hypothesis was wrong. its in 440. So, I think, why do I feel like the song is touching me? That question activates my nerd brain, and here we are again, trying to understand this obsession with Benito.

Digital Crack

This past winter, just ahead of and a little bit after the Super Bowl, I listened to and watched a ton of music from Bad Bunny, which I found was this salad of sound and sensation. Bad Bunny and Tainy create this auditory drug that I just can’t put down. They are in the lab operating like neuro-musical scientists, engineering sounds that heal and sounds that trap. Ojitos Lindos is the song that triggered the relapse, and so that is the one I am going to dissect. The thesis, if you need it, Ojitos Lindos creates an unusually immersive sensory experience through vocal contrast, environmental sound design, and emotional pacing. The result is music that feels less like something heard and more like a place inhabited. In my opinion Bad Bunny strategically activates the brain’s tactile, spatial, and emotional centers by activating your senses creating this push pull dynamic that kicks up your dopamine and reward anticipation systems. I think he does this intentionally, so that you’re never quite done with him. There is always a yearning for more.

Travelling on sound

As the opening notes of the song play, I feel my Parietal lobe activate. (How you ask… you’ll have to read my Hashimoto’s posts, I have superpowers, now.) What sounds like horns and an organ play on a loop. The first loop doesn’t resolve the way that you expect, and it makes you feel like you need to keep listening. Almost compulsively.

I get this same sensation waiting in line to board a plane. Like the journey has started, but it hasnt. So, your dopamine is kicked off before that singing even starts.

Anyway, the Parietal lobe in the back of your head. It is responsible for interpreting touch, not SOUND. TOUCH. Which is trippy. When I listen to Bad Bunny’s music, I feel like he is TOUCHING me. Unhinged? yes, but I honestly think that’s the point of the mix. For you to feel like you are in the room with him. having this experience together.

Once Li’s voice comes in, you are almost transported to a new place. The sweetness of the singing draws you in.The music climbs towards the beat drop, and the layers continue to build into the first chorus. and then drop off again.

Emotionally, it feels like the start of a relationship, where you are climbing and building and layering in your feelings and emotions, and the relationship is part of your daily rhythm. The end of the chorus says “ And I’m born again ( or reborn) and the loop starts again in the other person’s perspective.

Storytelling in the production

The story isn’t just in the lyrics. The mix is also telling the same story. In the second verse, you hear Benito’s voice; the lyrics move you through the climb into the relationship in a different way. He says it’s been a while since I’ve held anyone’s hand. It’s been a while since I’ve sent a good morning text”. ( Actual lyrics: Hace tiempo que no agarro a nadie de la mano, Hace tiempo que no envío: "buenos días, te amo"). Here, you hear the sonic layers start to build again. The beat drops a little sooner here. As if to say he was sure faster. He was in it quicker. The beat cuts out again, and you get the sounds of paradise. You can hear the birds coming in. As he describes heaven. “There is no sin here” and “making mistakes is beautiful”. Which is an awesome sentiments for growing intimacy. ( Listen, I can make this about Jesus so fast your head will spin… but I won’t).

I won’t lie, the very sound of Benito’s voice gets me going… lol. The depth of his voice activates my frontal lobe EVERY TIME. I often imagine what he smells like, cause I’m weird.

The section where you hear the waves crashing and the lyrics are simply “Tu y Yo”, for me feels relaxed, easy going, soft, not rushed. It’s the sensation of just being. Being still and trusting that its good. that sensation of the calm you feel once your love is settled. You still get the heat in your belly when you see them but your heart and your mind doesnt race like it did before.

Like when I lay on the beach and close my eyes to take a nap trusting the sun won’t burn me and I won’t get robbed.

The Music video

The music video is trippy cause that’s not at all what I expected. In the video he is on dates with multiple women, night after night, day after day, some one new. You then see him speeding down the a road and he’s clearly disconnected from anything. the thrill of driving fast is one I know well. Hitting 100+ in my honda accord on i-285 comes to mind.

It’s playing with his life in crazy ways. There is a scene where he has his eyes closed as he drives. The car wrecks and he ends up in the hospital. He gets a text and then his dog comes in the room and that’s who he is happiest with. That isn’t really the treatment you expect for the song. But love is love. So i guess it works.

That I would have done

If I was building out a story line for the music video, I would be boring and obvious.

I would follow a woman who meets a man, maybe on the beach, maybe at a party or at work, whatever. She is cautious like the music plays to, and it is a slow climb. The images are POV. So you dont see her, you just see him, and how she views him. The lighting and the environments would adjust as her feelings climb. They would reflect that its a slow climb, a slow burn for her. You get to the end of the first chorus and it rewinds. You go back and see it from his perspective, from the point where he decides its her. You watch her from his POV and it builds until the end of the second chorus.

Then I would pan out, and look at their relationship from the outside in. What observers might think or the perspective they might take seeing them together out and about. You just see them living life together in intimate spaces. Like laying on the couch with the male partner on top with his head on her chest as they read or whatever.

Cause the music to me feels like a summer night with someone you vibe with. The organs feel like its something sacred. The waves crashing on to the shore and the seagulls singing feel like nostaligic family trips. This song to me feels like a deep tight hug from your lover who smells a little like outside, cologne, and arm pit, but like in the best ways.

It feels intimate. It feels like love.

Dont get me wrong, loving your puppy, or something else is fine. It doesnt have to be a straight love story, or even a monogamous love story. But that’s what I feel. That’s the “touch” that I get listening to this.

The contrast and the cuddles

I think the contrast in the visuals and the music is another piece of the diabolical nature of this media made drug, called Bad Bunny, but it also speaks to the way life is sometimes. Some of my most beautiful moments had dark clouds around them. Like sitting on the couch and cuddling with my cousins after my grandma died. That was beautiful but also deeply painful.

The contract in the vocals also do something that i cant describe in my brain. both feel like a cuddles but in different ways.

The lyrics themselves are calling to a nostalgic love and a softness that is clear by the way the song is sung. Also, as someone who has been deeply in love before, the feeling you get from the act of staring into your lover’s eyes, constructing this universe together, is nuts. Like, can’t explain the intense feeling. I think I chase that feeling of deep connectedness when looking for a partner. Its like open-hearted vulnerability and depth. Which can take time to build, but I yearn for it and this song fills that void for the 4:18 that it runs.

9 meses en un lugar. 2 amigas. 9 meses en un lugar sin conectar profundamente con otras. La vida de una turista?

Estoy viviendo entre tres idiomas constantemente. Pienso en español, en inglés y en Kreyol. Para mí no es muy difícil pensar así, pero cuando llega el momento de hablar, no puedo. Si estoy en inglés y necesito cambiar a español, mi cerebro glitches un poco.
En este momento, estoy escuchando música en kreyol y pensando y escribiendo en español y no me da pena. Es fácil. Mi problema no es las idiomas. Mi problema es confiar en otros.

Tengo una gran vida en inglés. Pasé casi 20 años en la escuela en inglés. Tomé algunas clases en otras lenguas, pero la mayoría era en inglés. Mi familia es de Haití. Hablemos kreyol en la casa y en la iglesia. No puedo escribir bien en kreyol, pero estoy practicando más. Y español, bueno, mi vida en español es un poco colorada con mi vida en inglés. La música, algunos programas, clases, y amig@s forman cómo veo la vida en español.

Cuando llegué para vivir aquí, me sentí emocionada y alegre, pero la gente me habla en inglés. Alguien me dijo que es porque ellos quieren practicar su inglés, pero esta práctica me hace daño. Necesito vivir mi vida en español para mejorar. Trabajo en inglés, hablo con mi familia y mis amigos de EE.UU. en inglés. Casi toda mi vida pasa en una lengua que no puedo usar para conectar con lo demás aquí. Y la excusa que me da es que ellos quieren practicar su inglés…. meh. pass.

en mi mente pienso que ellos no me gustan. que ellos no quieren que entre en sus grupos. Pienso que ellos no tiene espacio para una loquíta como yo y por eso no hablo mucho.

Ahora, voy a una iglesia en español.Ellos tienen las canciones, versículos de la Biblia, y juegos que yo sé y comprendo en kreyol. Entiendo el contexto de estas cosas, y puedo expresar mis pensamientos sobre Dios y la vida espiritual sin problema, pero ellos todavía, me hablen en inglés. me siento un poco lejos de otras personas. como mi experiencia van a ser una de turista otra vez. No es lo que yo quiero, pero… no sé.

como construir una vida nueva sola? si tengo miedo de confiar en otros como voy a crece?

I worked for an organization that fired its CMO, and then a few short weeks later, she was CMO of its direct competitor. I was presented with a similar opportunity when I was laid off a year and a half ago. I said something along the lines of “ that feels disloyal.”

HOW STUPID! lol. Haha! Can you imagine? They fired you in a shit economy for no reason after breaking their own rules, and you said: “That would be disloyal”. Disloyal to whom?

In my head I said, “Maybe Jay was right about his assessment. Maybe in the church or in a not-for-profit is where I should be.” I don’t have the stomach to play Game of Thrones inside companies that could cease to exist at any moment. ( AI really messed y’all’s money up).

I don’t steal ideas. I don’t take credit for things I didn’t do. I say thank you when people help me; I have a positive-sum game mentality, but others seem not to.

The Puerto Rico Effect

The idea is that the world is dog-eat-dog, and if you aren’t willing to harm folks, you won’t go far, is boring to me. I think that kind of storytelling lacks creativity. We had Michael Jackson and Prince at the same time. We had Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey at the same time. The idea that you just can’t be successful without bashing in heads seems outlandish to me.

All I have to do is look at Puerto Rico. Have you ever gone to their Wikipedia page? The list of Famous Puerto Ricans is insanely long.

One of my favorite stories paints Ricky Martin as playing Fairy Godfather. He gave Adrienne Bailon- Houghton her first break. The story she tells is that in October 1999, when she was 15 or 16 years old, singing in a church choir at Madison Square Garden. He handpicked her and a few others to perform as back-up singers for his Livin' la Vida Loca Tour, providing her first big break. And she has been on our screens ever since.

Then there is Everyone’s favorite, Benito. He’s been the recipient of Ricky Martin’s ongoing support and collaborations over the years.
Mr. Martin is also the artist who opened that gate to the “Latin explosion” in the late 90s and early 2000s, giving us a lot of our faves. ( well, him and the Estefans)

It is hard work. It is being available and putting in effort, but I don’t think I have to destroy people in order to find success. If it doesn’t work out, then it wasn’t for me, and I can try something else or go for another opportunity.

On the other hand

In order to create, sometimes you do have to embody villainy. You break the rules. You do the things that help you soar. You ask for more at a time that works for you. You elevate your powers so that no one can keep you out of the door.

Heroes break the rules all the time. They lie. All of them. They lie to hide their identity. They interfere with police business. They take jobs that allow them to be the hero more often than they have to work. Did you see the place Kara Zor-el was able to afford on an assistant’s salary in National City? ( I guess that is supposed to be a stand-in for LA or DC).

So here is my thought, as a creative, what levels of villainy am I willing to engage in to be able to create for a living? Lying.. meh. I have enough things to keep up with in my brain. (What a noble reason.)

I’ve watched clips of new reporters, TV hosts, directors, actors, all saying they have done something they never did before, to get their foot in the door.

Meanwhile, I’ve done just about everything that I’ve said I’ve done. I do speak Spanish, I do speak Kreyol. I can read and understand French, Portuguese, and quite a bit of Italian. I think I speak English, but that is to be seen.

I’ve edited videos in Premiere Pro, and I’ve also used tools like Descript. I’ve worked for the Obama Campaign, hosted events, and done all kinds of marketing with success.
I have taught children, planted gardens, and written books. I make a mean Soup Joumou, and I think I have a pretty good fashion sense. Am I amazing at everything? No. But the more I do it, the better I get at it. So, then what am I missing?

You gotta have that DOG IN YOU

Visibility and persistence are the missing keys for me. I knock on one door, and when it doesn’t open, I lie on the floor and cry. I let people discourage me. I believe in them more than I believe in me. I believe the limits that they have placed on me.

But I’m starting to see more clearly. I wanted to move to Seattle to study to be an interior designer. I let my cousin talk me out of it. I had an idea for a customer loyalty program, and I let people bully me out of pursuing it. THE CULPRIT HERE IS ME. ¡EL PROBLEMA SOY YO!!!!!

I had a manager who called me overzealous. I say that a lot. Cause… ma’am. Passionate was right there. Anyway, she also told me that I was too talented, or rather that I had too much skill to focus on where the bullet points sit in a social graphic.

Another colleague at a different employer alluded to me having more talent in my pinky finger. But I fall short cause I won’t chase things at full force. I worry too much about how people feel. I worry too much about breaking the rules.

I’m also worried about what being perceived means. I don’t want people to have stories in their heads about me. I don’t want people to have opinions. HAHA! But I'm learning not to care.

Can you imagine if Spider-Man let James Jameson talk him out of being Spider-Man? Or if the Flash cowered every time the Reverse-Flash came around with feelings and opinions. Those stories would be very boring. Courage is what makes the hero. Having no limits is what makes a villain. Finding the balance is what makes a star.

You have to have that dog in you. You need to be persistent, chase after it, go at it until you get to that squeaker on the inside. And then let everyone see.

I have to go after that thing like a rabbit in the springtime.

So, do I just put the key in the door?

Not gonna lie. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know who to stalk or who to talk to. I don’t know what questions to ask or who to sell an idea or a project. I don’t know who to email or whose door to knock on for funding.

I’ve taken up the philosophy “ Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.” I walk towards my dreams every day I read more. I practice drawing. I listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks. It’s not a matter of knowing how anymore. It’s knowing who.

Maybe I need to learn how to crawl before learning how to fly. But either way, I plan on touching the sky.

Join me, won’t you?

In 2022, I posted a reel that did NUMBERS about how I manifested a work-from-home job. At that point I had been working from home for about a year, and I wanted to share the how and why. Being a Kreyol and Spanish Speaker, Manifestation to me means “protest” or “working for change”. But using that word is all it took. For the next several years, I was in and out of witchy TikTok and Instagram. My algorithm was Elevation Church, Israel and New Breed, and a very pretty blond-haired, soft-voiced tarot card reader. The messages were a bit disparate in that one is telling me Jesus lives in me, and through GOD’s power I can do anything. The other is telling me, this is what is coming for you as a collective, all of you. Period. It gives a bit of cognitive dissonance. Am I powerful? Am I a powerless plot point in a cosmic story? What is the truth? I had a decision to make.

Magic and Spiritual Gifts

I didn’t immediately fall into watching it. I would usually swipe past. Then, I had a few very hard months, and their messages of change felt comforting. Sometimes they would come on, and I would let it play. I would listen, I would believe, and then nothing. Nothing came. Nothing happened. Nothing, and that rattled my hope more. Made me more desperate for answers. Made me feel like I should just throw my hands up and give up.

I admit my Adventist upbringing had me holding these people at arm’s length. I don’t have condemnation for them. A gift is a gift. I’ve had dreams and “premonitions” that I can’t truly explain. From dreams telling me to warn a friend to make a change to knowing the exact moment when my grandmother passed away from across the sea, before my family even woke up to discover it. I should note that it’s not a magic trick, I can’t control it, and it has always been for me, my life, and the people on my path. After a few months of watching them, I realized I’m outsourcing my magic.

They don’t know what’s coming. No one does. Sometimes I can see little glimpses of things on my path, but that just tells me I’m either where I should be or I’m not.

It was time to take stock and figure out what I believed about the metaphysical and my being. I started by leaning on my upbringing and belief about GOD as an anchor, and I started working to understand why this probably wasn’t the way to go for me.

Pop Culture Commentary on Psychics

The story of King Saul is an interesting example. He had anxiety, and he was going to war. Samuel had already died, and he wanted counsel. (Keep in mind, he drove all the fortune tellers, witches, and psychics out of the kingdom. ) He goes to a fortune teller and “summons” Samuel, who says, “ Because you did this, you will die,” and what does Saul do? He kills himself. What does he do? He kills HIMSELF! Who kills him? HIMSELF.

In a clear juxtaposition, you see Jonathan and his armorbearer saying, “perhaps” this is the path forward. All while everyone else was waiting for signs and confirmation from the crystals and the prayers. Jonathan just decided to go, asking for signs to appear in his movement, not in his waiting.

On the show Avatar: The Last Airbender, in"The Fortuneteller", Episode 1,14, Team Avatar visits a village run by a seer named Aunt Wu, who predicts Katara will marry a powerful bender. Aang tries to prove his love for Katara, and Sokka is skeptical about all of it. He notes on multiple occasions that the people are making the predictions happen and not that they are coming to pass on their own. The episode ends without a clear resolution to the question of whether or not the future is pre-destined or if the future is changed based on actions.

Another example is That’s so Raven. In every episode, Raven Baxter is making her premonition happen by trying to avoid it. If she does nothing, then nothing happens. If she doesn’t try to change the outcome and lets things move forward, well, the show is less entertaining. However, her resistance is what is making it happen.

And then everyone’s favorite witch, psychic, and empath, Phoebe Halliwell, honed her skills to the point where she could see multiple outcomes based on her choices and the actions of others. I like how the show ends for her: married to Cupid after being married to the Source of all evil, and she couldn’t have predicted that outcome. That something that the council of elders told her was taboo and forbidden in the past was now sanctioned for her, because of how much she worked for the good.

Which brings me to the reasons that watching tarot card readers isn’t doing you any favors. Predictions don’t control outcomes—choices do.

That is your magic.

Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana

You have freewill. You have freedom of choice. No one can tell you what will happen to you. They can try to direct your path or tell you what to do, they can threaten you or scare you, but ultimately, your choices are yours. You can say no to it. You can laugh at people’s visions for you and make your own plans. Nothing is impossible, and nothing is inevitable. All of it has to do with the choices you make, the people you surround yourself with, and how much you’re willing to work to get it.

By leaning heavily on the predictions of others and tarot readers, you are outsourcing your ability to make choices. THAT IS YOUR MAGIC! Stop outsourcing your ability to plan your own life. No one knows for sure what will happen tomorrow. You could be singing on a train like Tyrese or walking down the street being gorgeous like Whitney Houston. The magic is you being you, and being visible, and making choices.

What to Do Instead

So, you like a little tarot card reader. It is entertaining. You vibe with Astrological predictions about your life. Not gonna lie, I did too. haha! Part of choosing Valencia for me was the name of the city, the location on the beach, the cost of living, the fact that Spain isn’t bombing people’s children with my tax dollars, and because of an astromap. A lot of lines converge in Spain for me. So, I live here. But none of those things removed my agency. My ability to make choices is intact. I chose this life for myself, and used different kinds of evidence to support my choice. I didn’t outsource my decision-making to someone else. I decided. I moved. I committed.

In 2024, I spent the summer here. I was exploring cities to see where I wanted to live. I took a train from Barcelona to Cordoba, and I had a layover in Madrid. For the uninitiated, Madrid has two large train stations. Atocha and Chamartin. I had to change stations and didn’t realize it until maybe 40 minutes before departure. I missed that train. I couldn’t have predicted it. Cause I had been VERY type A in my planning and organizing movement on this trip. That particular company closed the doors a few mins before departure and wouldn’t let anyone else on. I ended up on the last train out of Madrid that night, only to get off at the wrong stop. THE WAY I CRIED! I immediately called my father. I ended up spending the night in a small hotel in a tiny town called Villanueva de Córdoba.

I don’t know what would have happened if I had gotten on the right train. I don’t know what would have happened if I had made it into Cordoba the night before. I do know that my dad showed up for me. The VERY handsome station worker helped me find a place to sleep and a cab to get there. I couldn’t have predicted that. I don’t think anyone would have been. I am able to trust that all my needs will be met and I will be taken care of. I can predict that I can count on doors to open and to find love in perfect strangers, even when the situation isn’t ideal.
However, that’s all I can be sure of. Tomorrow is not here yet.

So what can you watch instead of the Tarot readers and channel message folks?
Neuroscience content. Teachers and coaches. People who can help you hone your power to manifest your future, and by manifest, I mean putting your hands in the dirt and sowing the seeds that help you get the win. Find communities with aligned visions so you can walk towards them together. Why? Because this will teach you how to build your own power. You aren’t consuming people’s predictions. You are taking aligned action toward the future you want to see.

Manifestation is Active

At some point, you have to stop waiting to be told what happens next and start participating in what happens next. Not predicting it. Not fearing it. Building it. Step by step, choice by choice, with your hands fully in the clay, molding your own life.

The future isn’t something handed to you through a card spread or a vision; it’s something you co-create through action, faith, and a willingness to move without guarantees. So return to manifestation as participation. Trust that you don’t need full clarity to take the next step, just conviction. Because in a world full of Sauls, frozen and desperate for answers, you can be a Jonathan, who moves and decides. Let the signs meet you in motion.

Happy Scrolling

I was walking back from class yesterday, and I noticed a woman with her hands full. She had an empty tote bag on her shoulder and was juggling a lot of small items in her hands.

I thought to myself, “Ma’am, you have a tote bag. Why are you struggling and stretching your hands to carry all of that on your own?” Which ultimately was a rebuke to myself. I HATE asking for help. Even when I ABSOLUTELY need it.

I think that is my kind of arrogance. My kind of pride. I think I would rather suffer alone than let people help me. Which, frankly, is unhealthy. Saying I have trust issues is putting it lightly. I trusted people who were not trustworthy, and now I’m a bit risk-averse in that area.

But I have a tote bag on my shoulder. I’m already carrying the container that will free my hands. So why am I not using it? The metaphor is clear to me, but I’m also a bit lost. I’m not sure what the container that I’m not using is.

What does observing people and nature get you? New perspective. It helps with problem-solving and ideating. All that to say, there are lessons in watching. The more I look, the more I see. People have a lot of stories to tell, and so does nature. If you pay attention, the birds might help you solve your problem.