Marta Gómez y Javier Ruibal

I don't speak Spanish, more's the pity, but there's something about this song that tugs at my heartstrings nonetheless.  When I explained last fall that I had survived my long emotional desert sojourn, more commonly called life, by listening to songs from other cultures in the original languages, this was one of the many examples that sprang to mind.  

Marta Gomez is a Colombian folk singer and songwriter whom I discovered while she was still living there.  She has since re-located to Barcelona and has happily become a mother.  Her latest album was a delightful compilation of children's lullabyes.  In this duet she collaborates with Spanish singer-songwriter, Javier Ruibal.  

It gives me hope to see a man and a woman create such beauty together, simply sitting on a sofa in someone's living room, accompanied by a single guitar but combining their voices so wonderfully.  I love Marta's voice in its lower registers -- there is a human warmth that comes through and especially touches me.  Javier's voice gives me the sense of someone who has lived but has not let the vicissitudes of life suppress his spirit nor his heart.  Perhaps I'm projecting, but I also aspire to live in such a way -- to be open to love and life, and to never let life's hard knocks quell my spirit or my heart.  Today's world seems to trend toward the guarding of one's heart, but we all suffer needlessly thereby.  Trust is the test.  Paradoxically, one must learn to trust one's own heart before becoming capable of trusting another's.