Broken Hearts

Poor Mamma Ginna. She’s had another stroke. She can no longer walk and can barely talk, she’s frail and confused, and she hurts. I asked her daughter-in-law, who visits her each day in the hospital in West Virginia, to send her my love. All Mamma Ginna could do was smile. Looks like she may not make it till August when we’re flying back to visit her. She’s always saying to me, “I wish you lived closer.” Me too. She’s had a long life. Still, my heart hurts badly again at the idea of never seeing her again.

Speaking of heartbreak, at Spanish class last night a fellow estudiante, Yumi, did a report on a song called La Copa Rota. It’s the most wonderfully tortured song ever. Here’s my abbreviation of her excellent translation:

Drowning in jealousy
a Bohemian sits in the cantina,
hopeless and sad,
his nerves wrecked,
crying without relief
like a tormented crazy man
because that ungrateful woman left him.

One night, like a madman,
he bit the wineglass
and made a sharp edge that destroyed his lip.
And the blood that dripped
mixed in with the wine
and this cry shuddered
to all those in the bar:

Don’t worry, campaí±eros,
if I destroy my mouth.
Don’t worry that with the edge of this glass
I want to erase
the mark of the kiss
that the traitor gave me.

Waiter, serve me the broken glass.
Serve me so it destroys
this obsessive fever.
Waiter, serve me the broken glass.
I want to bleed drop by drop
the venom of her love.

It doesn’t get better than that. It made me want to run right home and start composing my own songs, full of despair and longing and blood. I think my first canción will ponder the eternal question: why have I never found my own true love, even though I’ve been sitting here in my living room for years just waiting for him?

Ayyiyi!
Mi corazon estí¡ congelado
en este enfierno de solitud sepulcral.
Mi sangre como pecina escarchada
No puede correr por mis venas estrangulares.
AY-yi-yiii…

Oooh, I’m liking it. “My heart is frozen in this hell of tomblike solitude. My blood like frosted sludge can’t run through my strangled veins.” Hey, I rock at this.