ASHES

 ASHES

Maria was born when the revelry

Lost the night, won the day

Your trousseau was fantasy

Maria was born in the carnival

And they didn't call him that like so many

Marias de santas, Marias de flor

It would be Maria, Maria only

Maria seed of samba and love

It wasn't night, it wasn't day

Only dawn, only fantasy

Just hill and samba, long live Maria

Who knows, luck would smile on you

And one day he would come as a standard bearer

Sambando with art, pulling strings

And in the middle of the revelry it would certainly be

In the eyes and dreams of a thousand revelers

(Roberto Carlos)

Life is a constant of illusions. We are always dreaming of something unattainable. Our desires are so intangible that many times we have the illusion of finally having them in our hands... to simply see them slip through our fingers, because dreams are fluid like water that runs through the riverbed... yes , we live chasing the chimeras of life, in the sweet illusion of finding happiness at the end of the journey. Sometimes we get a glimpse of what that happiness would be like. They are small streaks of light, which cross the background of the stage of life and allow us to experience such short moments in our lives that, many times, we don't even have the perception of having lived them... What a thing, isn't it?

Well, something that is part of our lives is the wearing of masks... not literally, of course... I would say, symbolically. We often play different roles in our day-to-day lives, not because we want to, but that is what the script for the great soap opera that is life demands of us. It is often not the role we want to play, but it is what we were given, and we cannot escape the script outlined for our lives. Because for the other actors to achieve what is expected of them, we have to serve as a ladder and prepare their big scene. As others will do for us.

Many of our characters have short lives. Some, we play only once in a lifetime. It's when we are mere extras in someone's presentation. It's not a bad situation. We don't hurt anyone, nor are we hurt... we are a mere decorative piece on the stage... When we catch a scene where we are handed a line, even a small one, we are certainly in danger... because a poorly placed word can destroy an entire performance , both ours and the star in vogue at the moment...

Well, of course we have our moments of prominence. After all, we have a play to perform, and at any moment we are called on stage to perform. And then...

Like Maria in the song, our entire trousseau for the presentation is made up of costumes. We are born at a time when someone is needed to play the role, we die when the character's mission is over. In the meantime, we experience various situations prepared to compose our lives... in some moments we are special, we are the star of the stage, in others, we are just the support of the actors in evidence in life, in others, mere extras, without even to be remembered by spectators of the theater of life...

We have thousands of expectations for our future... in our imagination, everything will work out... we'll get that beautiful apartment we've dreamed of for so long, we'll get that divine car we saw at the dealership... we'll travel to the place of our dreams, to spend a paradisiacal vacation, which we will talk about for a long time to our acquaintances, awakening in them the envy for not having achieved what we fought for so long...

Yes, we will be wearing at that moment the mask of success and opulence and the actors around us, the mask of... falsehood? Maybe... some will be really happy with our success, but some will definitely be wondering why us and not them... which is perfectly normal, since that was the script handed to them backstage... simply because, my friends, there is no free will in our lives. We are fated to follow what the Fates decided we would live...

It's eight hours and forty minutes this Tuesday of Carnival. May it be a very, very happy day in your life...

See you tomorrow, God willing... kisses to all...