Llorando for Lhasa

Science says that olfactory memory is the strongest. Most people I know claim to be visual. The real distribution is anyone's guess: a quick google search shows wildly different results. I am definitely auditory. I've known it since high school, where I quickly noticed that if I really paid attention to what the teachers said in class, I had little to no studying to do at home. You'd guess that I am consequently a real music lover. I'm not, not really. Sure I have my favorite tunes and bands, but I usually choose to listen to audio books or spoken radio over music. I do love music for dancing, however, and most of all, I love specific songs for the memories they anchor in my mind.

I remember the song of my choreography for my first dance recital, at age 5 (Culture Club, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me".) My first slow dance with a boy, in my early air cadet days (Wham, ''Careless Whispers''). I remember an opera song my dad used to play, very loudly, every Sunday morning. There was also a movie soundtrack he would play on repeat for hours, with headphones, lying on the couch. I remember my mom used to love playing Aznavour in the background, when we had guests over for dinner. My favorite song during the summer I spent working in Dominican Republic still stirs my feelings (Marc Anthony, ''Hasta Ayer''). All the songs of The Eminem Show will forever remind me of an intense summer of 2002 spent training in Cornwall. Most men I've known (why just men I wonder?) are linked in my mind with a single song they made me discover early in our friendship. I have some musical memories that are less prominent, but sometimes they resurface with surprising power. Such is the case of Lhasa de Sela.

It was the summer of 1998. I was 21 years old, working a meaningless minimum wage job near little Italy, in Montreal. After a few tumultuous years following my dad's passing, I was finally settling down into some semblance of a normal life. For the first time in my life, I had my own apartment, a steady (minuscule) income and just about as much freedom as I could wish for. And no idea what to do with it. My life was completely directionless. I was a human wind vane facing the direction of the most influential person in my life at the time, which probably changed daily. My time in the Dominican Republic had sobered me from the depressed state I used to live in. I had seen their miserable work conditions and poor living arrangements. Despite living off a few dollars a month and working 12 hour days, 12 days in a row (then traveling by bus for hours to spend 24h with their family before starting a new cycle), I saw these people gather up on the beach every night with their guira, drums and accordion, to sing and dance merengue, looking relaxed and cheerful. How's that for a new perspective. Upon returning to Montreal, I decided I had no right to self-pity, not after what I had witnessed. But what was I to do? What was I to be?

I searched for answers within myself. I searched for inspiration from others. There was a little coffee shop near my place. I often stopped by on my way to work, to spend an hour pondering these great questions over a delectable cappuccino. On a beautiful July afternoon, the music that was playing caught my ear. The voice of the singer was deep, irresistibly sensual and yet strikingly earnest. Like Cupid's arrow, it went straight to the heart. Her music was unique, a gypsy mix of Latin influences that somehow sounded very local. Lhasa de Sela was her name. I listened to the entire album, enthralled. During the last song, a stranger approached me, holding pencils and a sketching pad. "Excuse me Miss," he said, "I like to draw strangers for fun. I saw you and thought you had interesting features. I hope you don't mind." He smiled and extended a sheet from his book. I took it and thanked him, flattered. I don't think it was a particularly good likeness of me. He had drawn me looking pensive, as I must have been while lulled by Lhasa's rhythms. I saved the sketch and did not think of that moment until two months ago.

I came across a reference to Lhasa in a news article. She passed away in January this year, at age 37 from a long battle against breast cancer. The news came as a shock to me. I watched videos of her on youtube. I listened to La Llorona again and I cried. I knew nothing of her but what I saw on those videos but her inner beauty radiated so strongly that it tore at my heart. That 1998 afternoon, in the café, I was desperate to find myself. So desperate, that I was trying instead to build myself an identity from a mishmash of exotic interests, philosophical contemplations and vagabond ambitions. To my 32 year old self, it now seems that I merely wanted to be different, to stand out from the masses, as if my very survival depended on it. Perhaps it did. Now, I am content to be who I am, common or rare, regardless of whether I blend in or stand out. Lhasa, she was a rare, unique gem that shone brilliantly, spreading her warm light to all the hearts that opened up to her. That's who she always was, without trying, from start to finish.