Gema Corredera

"And who does not possess a fire, a death,
a fear, something horrible,
even if it was feathered,
even if it was with smiles? ”.

Alexandra Pizarnik

It is a terrible fear that floods me, since I was a child, when I have to sing in public. Fear because out there everyone is watching you; the shoes, the hands, what you say. Somehow they judge you. It takes a pair of well-made ovaries to bare the soul on stage, no matter where and how it is. And it may seem like a contradiction, but that same stage terror transforms me, moments before going on stage, into a lioness that goes from one side to another behind the bars that guard it. I can't stop moving, with my eyes at least, spinning in space, staring at a wall or the ground. I swallow my eyes at those next to me in the dressing room or at the side of the scene. I am agonized, blind, hungry, wanting to destroy everything with one claw and escape. When the moment comes I go out like a stampede, I roar as I hear my footsteps sound, hurrying towards the light of the people waiting for me. I'm afraid, I can't stop looking at them. At the slightest carelessness, they can leave me lying there, alone, with everything I carry stuck in my throat and I must free to stay alive. And it is that the people who listen to me are like a tamer who dominates me and tames me.

In these strange days, of almost monastic confinement, I return to walk in circles inside my house. I sit down with the guitar, I read, I record, I think, I write. That desire to break everything with one blow and run away returns. The difference is that for the moment I will not go on stage; there is a virus that has locked us all up. I understand now that I write this note. From so many comings and goings, over the years, the wild creature that possessed me as a young girl stayed and is already part of everything I am in body and soul. Those minutes of "fainting" marked my life forever. That eternal moment in which I knew that my destiny was servitude and hard work and that the only way to continue living was to become a slave to that rare mythological being that is music.

In these strange days of recollection quasi monastic, I go back to walking in circles inside my house. I sit down with the guitar, I read, I record, I think, I write. That desire to break everything at once and run away returns. The difference is that for the moment I will not go on stage; there is a virus that has locked us all up. I have understood now that I write this note. After so many comings and goings, over the years, the wild creature that possessed me as a young girl has stayed and is now part of everything that I am in body and soul. Those minutes of "fainting" marked my life forever. That eternal moment in which I knew that my destiny was servitude and hard work and that the only way to continue living was to become a slave to that rare mythological being that is music.