Cheetah's Worth Words

Whatever music you like, you know what I mean. Certain songs make you smile, others make you sad. Put on Colorblind or Mad World and make sure you’ve got a boxful of tissues ready by. Play anything by Wyclef, Vampire Week-End and get ready to get your body rockin’. Listening to music is like reading: you’ve got to practice and get to know new sounds, get a grap of your favourite artists’ new album or some random artist you’ve heard on FaceBook or MySpace.

You might not be a great dancer but stop me if I’m wrong: some tunes just make you want to get up your desk and move your feet around. Even if doing so would imply looking like a moron. Head bangers in their baggie pants and flashy t-shirts know what I’m talking about: how music can change the way you see the world, how it can metamorphose someone, an occasion, a roomful of people with previously no special connection.

Loud speakers blasting, nobody hears the engine. Caps tilted to the side, golden chains around their neck. Baggy pants and expensive designer shoes, fancy tatoos and huge obvious ear and finger rings. Bimbos flying around like seagulls after the fishing boat. Guns on display under their armpits. West Coast gangsta. Their mothers are closing their eyes. Their brothers’ eyes shine with pride. Their fathers are departed.

Muscle museum for the pimps.

Lying under coconut trees with a fruit cocktail in my hand, the warm sun heats up slowly the sand underneath by feet. Seagulls for neighbours and giant blue and red crabs for friends. The sound of the waves breaking on the reef out at sea like a childhood melody, nursing my mind in a calm, relaxing way. Surfboards next to me, my girls by my side, I’m waiting for the perfect wave. Suddenly it starts snowing. Temperature drops all of a sudden. Sky turns grey, heavy with winter snow. Summer is still far off, I should stop dreaming or else I’ll end up in my bathing shorts out there in the freezing cold!

Every year the same thing: people drinking and dancing and just before midnight, checking their watches, the final countdown. Rising glasses of champagne, looking in the eye, kissing and hugging, yelling at the top of their lungs the same phrase: Happy New Year!!

The day before was just the same, the year to come basically the same as the one that just passed. People tend to make promises, new year resolutions they won’t keep (most of them), decide on foolish things not to come true anyway. A good occasion to party, to gather up with friends or family, eat just another fancy dinner, suit up and dance till the end of the night

Sometimes I wish years would just go by and look like the last one, sometimes I wish they would all be different and better and better. Sometimes I think I’d be better off on some far island with my glass of champagne and palm groves and white sand and sea shells and the sun for only companion. But this year hols great expectations: a daughter to raise and a wife to please, a family to feed and a future to find. Today is the first day of a new year, hopes are the same, regrets as well as moments of joy. Tonight is cold and promising, our baby sleeps like an angel in her crib and we’re off to ours, till the little one screams for her mommy’s boob, hungry for love.