Emiliano Mancilla

She left on Monday, but we kept talking during the next days. Replies about my “pretty face”, messages about her adventures and photos about her misadventures fulfilled my boring reality. Her flirting night invitations to visit her down by the beach blinded the “Soprano’s” Sundays at my dad’s place. 

Nevertheless, every now and then I had to remember that I had a 9 to 7 job, and that I had a live session and a gig in the days coming with the band.

I just couldn’t wait for the free moments after work or practice to read her cute messages and watch the photos she sent me. Who knew how much happiness you could get by taking your chances?

My adrenaline was still latent. I still couldn’t believe that for the first time in a million chances taken, it wasn’t the lottery, it wasn’t the winner goal in a final, but much better, being with the girl I wanted to be. 

The first important thing we had upcoming was a live session. Naturally I wanted to get my guitar ready, and the last thing missing was changing the strings. Once I finished, the brightness was unbelievable. And I started playing. 

The open E string sounded so good that I started improvising over it, and in a few moments I got a riff that was mysterious, sensual and magnetic for my liking. It was something that made me feel electric pulses inside my bones, I knew that I needed to do something with it. And the only lyrics, the only story that matched perfectly with the riff, was the story I just had. 

Then I stopped and meditated for a long time. 

I had this thing, this “curse” someone in the past could say, that every time I wrote something about the girl I was in love with, things ended… Nothing happened after. 

It seemed like a trade, the sacrifice of love for the beauty of a song. 

Did I want that?

I did know that we wouldn’t be in any love relationship, with both of us in different places and me not even sure if I wanted one. But I didn’t want to cut her out of my life. At least so quickly. 

There are always things that one knows for sure they are just superstitions, but try to not get involved “just in any case”. 

On the other side, I felt it was going to be a great song and it would be the truest art I could make. 

And I thought again, and thought again and thought one more time. 

And I ended up with two arguments to do it. The first one being that objectively it was something mental and if things didn’t work they wouldn’t have to do with the song. And second, if the curse was true and it had to do with the song, there was nothing as romantic as sacrificing love for art. The burning pain creating something so mundane yet so divine. 

And I wrote it. It would end up being a song I knew it was special and I needed to protect and treat with the highest standards. 

During the next few days, things remained normal, which kept me feeling fucking great. She sent me some kisses to inspire me before my live session, which went incredible. 

Six days after the live session, during lunch at the office I decided to take her invitation to visit her down by the beach, a goodbye visit before she left México, I thought. So I sent her a message. 

When I got home I saw a big message and I read it. It said that it sounded lovely but she thought it would be easier to leave our lovely time in México city as it was already a nice memory, that she would get anxious even knowing that it was just a goodbye visit. 

I said it wasn’t my fault to be only attracted to pretty Irish Bonnies and we ended up laughing about it. And as it always happens, time erased the length of our conversations until there wasn’t any word left to wipe out. I am sure she forgot me in no time as I was just an anecdote, less that a line in her book of adventures. For me It took me a while to try to get over her, which I couldn’t, but learned to manage my memory flows. 

What was left was a beautiful song and a gig to come, and the gig went wonderful, those experiences along with the live session made me think that I could give it a shot to music. This time seriously, and for that it didn’t have to be a hobby, I had to put my soul in the game, the 10 hours a day working were taking too much energy for my brain, I needed time to focus in what I loved. 

Also, the quality I saw in the song I wrote about sweet Bonnie made me think that maybe I needed to try to give my best shot in an important location, maybe a mainstream city. And I looked for some music school to be my very best either in the States or the UK, until I finally made up my mind for London, where I scheduled an audition. 

Christmas passed, New Year passed, and on the third of January, one day after my mom’s birthday, I told her that I was going to quit the job and shoot my shot with music.