serendipitous salsa

me and the city. digitally altered.
original photography by me & Lile

there are days when my city
just seems so magical
filled with surprises on corners
sometimes they are hard to see
what with all the suits,
the women teetering on pinprick heels of shoes
yes, sometimes my day i can only sit on a seat and watch it all walk by
watch the magic waft softly.

today i took a stroll down the street in the city
on the search for coloured pens (again)

as i walked into a stationery shop,
buskers outside began playing
my heart swelled

i saw coloured pens, but i couldn’t last in there
i walked quickly outside again
sat on a blue bench
kicked my shoes off, hugged my knees
and just *listened* to the buskers.

they were most extraordinary.

i have seen them before, a long time ago,
at the markets in a paddock outside a rural town about an hour north of here
and here they were again

four south american men, with long black hair,
colourful clothes… singing in perfect unison,
four guitars, four flutes

their music is tradition, it is lyrical, it is intense
it plays on my heart, fills my chest with energy,

it seems like it comes from far far away, even when i’m sitting only ten metres away
i get lost there for a while,
in the music.

a south american girl in cut off jeans and long curly black hair walks to the band,
a friend of theirs, it seems
as they play again, she begins dancing because she can’t help herself

she cha-chas, she salsas, she moves as the music moves her,
she dances from pure joy and a place of home
i cannot help but giggle..

as her arms flail fabulously about, suits of grey and black have to move out of her dancing way
she was the epitome of dancing like nobody was watching
or they did and she didn’t care.

she taught me a lesson, either way.
an old woman in pink knickerbocker shorts walks towards the band, to place
money in their opened guitar case. i watch as she smiles widely,
then breaks out into wonderful salsa step walking as she tips them.

that’s probably the highest compliment the musicians could be given…
for their music to make an old white woman move like a sexy salsa senoirita!

Ole! to magical moments…