when john berger said that the small things we do for each other are ‘commas of care’ and thinking now of every book that has been recommended to me and every song i’ve loved that has been shared with me and every movie i’ve watched because someone dear adored it and each one of those is a stitch in time, bright and gleaming, in whatever the pattern is of our own little lived-in tapestry of lives, and a placeholder for love bc when i come back to all these things, i come back to the love that gave them to me first, commas of care that let you pause and go on.
Hola! Here is me playing guitar & singing La Bruja. It’s a traditional folk song from México in the Jarocho style from Veracruz. The song’s lyrics are very dark and a little bit a play on words.
The title translates to “The Witch” but deep down, the interpretation of the song can be the fear of a powerful woman… a woman in the prowl of men, who catches them and makes them her own.
As a lesbian and Méxican woman who constantly fights for her own independence, I like the meaning very much, haha! But also as an indigenous Nahua, the idea of ‘cultural cannibalism’ of taking things she likes and making them her own… it’s very powerful to me. Jarocho music has always been, at its core, my people taking things we liked from the colonizers and making them our own.
I love folk songs a lot, especially the spooky ones like this one. I’ll put the lyrics & translation below. I hope you guys enjoy it (and sorry for the quality, I recorded it on my phone) 💀✌🏽✨
