From Agim Xhafka/ Sunday stories, tattoo

2023-06-04 10:51:00, Opinione Agim Xhafka

From Agim Xhafka/ Sunday stories, tattoo

Dawn Xhafka

Every time the sun sets in Savannah, Georgia, homesickness hits my throat like a craving for a delicious meal.

The ocean washes the American coast while you sit and watch. He contemplates and his mind goes far, far away. So fast that spaceships seem to walk like turtles.

He hears the strong waves on the distant continent and for a few seconds his brain takes him to the other continent, or for example to Korça, Tirana... He feels such haunting moments every day.

That the motherland is the father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, grandson, granddaughter. It is the family. That's why all day long you wave between foreign languages ??and when you're alone you speak Albanian. Memories only decipher this language.

Yesterday, as always, I accompanied the sunset by listening to songs. With Ela, the singer that my wife and I like the most. It makes Tirana America every day. We love it for the voice, but also for the lyrics. We love him since many years he accompanied us and beautified our lives. According to the titles, we remember; here, this song reminds us of when we entered the new house. This other one was when our grandson was born.

Then, when we got the green card... Like this, song after song, year after year. But after the first melody Ela started a dialogue in the studio. In February, she would tell about her artistic life. We were a little upset, but we didn't close YouTube. Let's listen to him, we decided with the wife. That's how we conveyed it for half an hour. But the confession was so exciting that I am bringing it as I heard it.

- I was born and raised in the village. I sang at home, at school and everywhere. And when they told me, what's your name, girl, Ela, Ela, I answered them with a melody. So one day, when they forced the village to participate in an artistic competition, they sent me to the city. To everyone's surprise, I won. The village celebrated. In my house we used to sing as a family until morning. After a few days I was called to Tirana.

I auditioned for the Radio-Television Song Festival. When I finished the last grades, the jury said, you won, you won! They gave me a song and ordered me not to go to the village. I would rehearse for a month straight, I would sleep in the dormitory with many other singers. I informed the village and the village wanted it. They were so happy that the whole thing was uprooted in Tirana. Hardly they were sent back to where they came from. I continued the rehearsals.

It was a song that I really liked. But a week before the Festival they informed me that my song had been removed, it would not be in the show. I didn't give myself those moments, but I went to the end of the television corridor and cried. My main concern was how the village would experience it. They would cry with you for sure. Since I was little, I thought that they would remove us as a village altogether, they would not leave our name on any map. And I had the usual fault. Here's a song by Ela that wiped us out, they would say.

So upset, I knocked on the door of the conductor's office. I told him to give me another song because the village expected a lot from me. Eyes and ears they were on me. He knew me, from his hand I received the first prize when I competed in the town of my village. He called Redon, the music editor. Try it for the song "Nata", maybe Shirli won't come from Germany and we'll give it to the girl, he said. Redon did not hesitate at all.

You walk in front, I follow like a pet. We would go up to the piano on the fourth floor. The heart started like those cars that take super laps on the dash. Through the stairs, Redoni asked me, up to what grade can you tell me? I was so shocked that I answered him, up to the fourth floor. Since I had my mind on the piano. The radio showed me the melodic line, gave me the text. He didn't expect me to learn it so quickly.

After two rehearsals, he told me, this song is for you. I'm sure you deserve it, but luck is with you, Shirley doesn't come from Germany. I was so happy and my mind went to the village. Ah, how happy they will be! The days of the festival came. Triumfova is the word that suits me. When I went to the village for a three-day holiday. As if it were the week of wheat harvest. No sleep, no rest. Just joy. And then doors and windows opened for me. Now I have become famous.

At this moment, the journalist teases him:

- Now tell us something from your spiritual life.

- Yes, like everyone and me, - she laughed with her unbridled gas.

- What do they call it?

- Let's say it another time. Ok?

-At least we know the first letter. R, it is. Rudolph, Robert, speak up!

-None of these. His name doesn't start with R, Ela said firmly.

- Is there an R on your arm?

-Yes it is. But I got this tattoo for him.

-For who?

- So for Redon, for the music editor. For that, he opened the path of art for me.

- Did you get a tattoo for gratitude?! - wondered the journalist.

- Yes. Tattoos, oh girl, are created. Humanity has invented them for gratitude. Love never speaks with a tattoo. She speaks with her eyes, she speaks with her heartbeat, with butterflies in her stomach, with glances, with reddening of the face, with the light of her eyes. While the tattoo is like that notary stamp when you buy a house or when you get married.

So it is the symbol that explains the dream, the passion that burns you, the momentum that is about to explode. I had two wishes: to tattoo my village, or Redon, the editor. I decided on Redon. That he enabled me to live my life the way I wanted, the way I thought, the way I dreamed, and thus Redon made my village to be happy and joyful. But I still have the desire to have a tattoo that includes the whole village, she laughed with that explosive gas.

My wife and I forgot we were watching it on the tablet. It seemed as if we were in the studio with Ela. So we shook our heads, we approved her every word.

Ah, how we need the show of gratitude, we both thought the same. How nice it would be if everyone, even if they don't get a thank-you tattoo, would have the courage to say some warm words from time to time to anyone who has found themselves in difficult times.

Someone who gave him a hand when he was falling or when the vortex of evil was consuming him. Let's not forget kindness so quickly, let's feed it with congratulations, congratulations, humility, why not with some tattoo. Let's water it down and eliminate as soon as possible from our vocabulary that expression that we use so often; "I crossed the river and ... and others, and others"'.