Passion

One of the most beautiful things in the world, is to see someone do something they love. 

To me, it’s most obvious with musicians, particularly classical ones. Go to a symphony, see an orchestra play, a groupmuse, have your friend play classical guitar on your back porch and watch their face. It will be a face that is in love. A face of reverence and awe and emotions I don’t know that there are words for. You can see it in their muscles, the way their arm moves the bow, it’s the same way you’d touch a lover. Their fingers, plucking the strings with confidence. But most of all you can see it in their faces. 

I recently watched a flamenco show in Seville, Spain. And oh boy, I almost cried. The flamenco guitar is enough to wrench feelings out of you, but then there’s the vocalists with their raw, slightly husky voices singing in a way that seemed so vulnerable, almost wounded. And then the dancers themselves. 

Their faces weren’t necessarily ones that I was used to in a dance performance. I was used to seeing calm, serene “the audience can’t tell how hard this is  ” faces. Their faces showed just as much as the movements of their bodies and flamenco is a very intense dance. The woman in particular, with her jet black hair smoothed back, sharp cheekbones and smoky eyes, her face was a peek behind the curtain just as much as it was a performance in and of itself. Grimaces, wild grins, haughty almost reserved expressions, they were all there and they were all underscored with love. Every complicated move of her feet, every flick of her skirt, every undulation of her hands in the air, was done with a passion that I think is one of the few pros to the human condition. There are few certainties in the world, but that kind of love? Unshakeable.