Portugal: the remeder 9

9. Day 8: like a Ferris wheel
 

After a night of restless sleep, another day dawns, seemingly determined to imitate the last. The rain had been falling in the early hours, imposing its rhythmic cadence, and dawn broke cloudy, threatening to continue its own private concert.

 I've often had the feeling of repeating days, similar days, events that unfold at regular intervals, like a Ferris wheel. In reality, nothing is truly repeated, as we've already discussed. The Ferris wheel, in each completed cycle, doesn't do so on the same day or at the same time, but its movement does cover the same degrees of its circumference. Sometimes we're up, sometimes down, and these positions repeat themselves throughout our lives. Today isn't the same as yesterday, but it's similar. Some call it routine, although the term is associated with monotony, boredom, and mechanicality, and that's not always the case. As we say, a labor of love is never a burden.

Doing nothing or living in a repetitive situation has a bad reputation, but sometimes it's better not to go looking for trouble. If you're a gambler, maybe you do. Gamblers are experts at risking losing money, but their motto is :bet on winning. Life is just that, a game with losses and wins. You also have to know how to gamble.

The morning arrived with the sad news of Bonnie Tyler's critical condition, an icon of my youth, after undergoing emergency surgery. The rest of the news was like a Ferris wheel, a recurring repetition with the addition of a comma or a period.

As I said, I woke up in the middle of the night with an upset stomach and started researching the tonadilla, a genre that dates back to Goya's time. The tonadilla gave way to the copla, and with Falla, it returned to its refined origins. The copla was unfairly linked to a dark period in Spain's past, of which it was a victim until it fell into oblivion. I've always found it prejudiced to try to connect music, in its purest sense, with politics or a particular political stance. Obviously, all artistic expression is the product of a context, but art is only accountable to itself. Many artists have become prisoners of their context or the ideas they've expressed. When this directly interferes, you have to deal with it in two ways: if you're a professional, correct course if you would rather not be a hostage to your opinions, or be independent and let it act as a shield. Perhaps, from the first case, we can deduce that many artists lived and died poor.

 Commitment, unless you enjoy playing the hero-victim, comes at a price. There are other factors, as I've explained more than once, that give independent artists an advantage: the lack of pressure, the freedom of choice, and the honesty. For a professional artist, freeing themselves from constraints and obligations is more complicated, even if they are both independent and professional.

Have you ever felt let down when meeting an artist in person or in an interview? Or even the other way around, liking them more as a person than as an artist? Only if both of these things coincide should you take them seriously, and you'll see they're not just playing a role. Many artists frequently suffer from self-deification, even if they pretend to be modest. It's an occupational hazard, and usually a chronic one. So remember the old saying: "Tell me what you boast about, and I'll tell you what you lack."

Yesterday I received an email from someone interested in giving me more exposure. She was persistent (like most services overwhelmed by competition). I immediately realized she hadn't even bothered to visit my website to see where I stand. Instead, I was interested in finding out who she was. She barely had an Instagram account. Her offer wasn't appealing, as it didn't align with my current priorities. Perhaps if she had played an instrument or been part of an orchestra or some other kind of ensemble, the feedback would have been more rewarding.

The website was recently updated, and I've included a warning about potential identity theft due to a detected incident. You can contact me, but please keep the subject line concise to avoid it going straight to the trash. A word to the wise (both at sea and on the open ocean).

The simple fact of not being disturbed has been worth it these days in Portugal. Ever-healing Portugal.

I've decided to start writing again if I have something fascinating to say. Otherwise, I'll just give a summary of the rest of my time here. It's boring watching the Ferris wheel go round and round again.