Just as I have returned to the northern homeland of the Aztecs up here in Utah, I realize I must keep returning to Mexico. Sometimes, during the long, dark, cold Utah winters I yearn for Mexico so badly I'll spend hours on the internet moving from the Pacific beaches of Mexico via Google Earth, to mariachi videos on YouTube, to photos of the colonial cities, or images of the life in the campo, trying to find a way to warm my soul.
Back to the circle, it's is a great symbol of a type of eternal recurrence; no beginning and no end. That's what I see in nature; a circular continuum. So spinning, yes spinning as a DJ seems to be a way to make these circles dance. When I spin records and when I dance, it seems like I can almost go beyond the circles or truly go into the circles. It's like going through time and space and so I spend a lot of time making music.
First of all, DJing is the perfect circular activity. It starts with a search for the right circles (vinyl) to spin. Then I layer the spinning discs with more circles in rotation. The layer upon layer of circles throwing out waves of sound, I mix it down on a pallet, more like a tablet, a digital canvas. Like a whirling dervish of vinyl and sound that can be orchestrated in an infinite number of ways. These are some of the reasons why DJing appeals to me so much.
Another motivation for doing music is the fact that my father is deaf. He's kind of a control freak at times, and with this form of expression, he can't really critique it. Sometimes I wish he could hear my musical creations, but most of the time, my musical world is a very personal place I go to work out my frustrations.
Deep-down, I know where my father's overprotective dark side comes from. I know he's doing everything in his power, so I don't have to suffer some of the disappointments he's gone through in his life. But when he's mad at me and we're fighting, I completely forget any of this, and I push my frustrations with him, deep inside of myself.
It's strange when we fight because he can yell at me through sign language, which, believe it or not, is scarier than voiced yelling. It scares me because his physical body becomes so animated it feels like he's going to hit me, even though I know he never would.
Combine all the sudden movements of arms, hands, and fingers with all the strange guttural sounds and moans that come out of his body sounding fiercely muffled, and it's terrifying. I know this sounds harsh, but sometimes this is the way he has to express himself. The deaf have just as many, probably more, emotions and frustrations as the hearing and it's actually healthy to get that stuff out, to express it somehow.
And it's hard without Mom up here because my dad and I get too isolated and I can go for days without saying a word to anyone. Mom has always been my listening ears. I do hit her up on Skype quite a bit because I can't go too long without some kind of verbal communication. My dad and I can go for long stretches of time signing the day-to-day basics.
"How late are working tonight?"
"Have you seen this other sock?"
"When are you going to do the dishes?"
This becomes another motivation for my music; the mic has become my listening ears:
So to MC, is more important to me,
Preserving spoken words, literally.
The only ears for days is gonna be this mic.
If you could hear my signs, you'd understand my plight.
So when I release these words they fly out in a wave
And being that they come from my silent cave
Words with wings are freed and now I'm not a not a slave
But the quiet where I've stayed
Is a gold mine waitin to be played.
And sometimes when I write, it comes out like a song
So I stop and mix a beat and start to sing along
From my mouth, words start to leave the page
Watch out now, they're gonna hit the stage.
New life
New rage
They move before us
and after us
and have a life of their own
kinda like a fungus.
And if books are dreams of words,
and songs are words with wings,
flying through a library,
seems the perfect thing.
YOU ARE READING
MC Quixote
General FictionThis story is about a fifteen year old moving from Mexico to the United States with her deaf father. She experiences many challenges and turns to writing songs and creating music to overcome the difficulties of moving to a new culture while growing...
