el arte de la salsa
This interview was important. I knew it was going to be at the beginning, I saw an older gentleman dressed in all white. Thinking in the back of my head knowing that this guy would indeed in fact have a story to tell.
As I approached him nervously asking if he would want to be interviewed for my YouTube channel and and explaining how I was interviewing people asking about their story and he responds
“ Well you better get comfortable because I have a story to tell. “
So I did get comfortable, I attached a microphone to his shirt and interviewed his first question which was “who are you”
He answered that he was the “Salsa Curator of the Musical Instruments Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” This was the one question that I had on camera the rest was off camera.
During the answer of the first question you could immediately tell his passion for salsa music. Talking to him felt as yes he had this love for life because he found his passion in life.
We ended up talking until around 2 in the morning. Starting at Herald Square, once they closed, Bryant Park, and once they closed Times Square. Both agreeing that it felt like we knew each other for a 100 years.
The stories he shared walked me through life after years of collecting knowledge on how the world operates. Each story started on a journey through living life. Each anecdote complete with banter that left me with my back hurting from laughing so much.
Why am I doing this? Because I am searching for what I can learn about life through other people. Asking him how he would change the world. Realizing that the odds of the world coming together to work together are pretty slim to none. That the man’s ego gets in the way of making a peaceful world a reality. Maybe if more women were in positions of power we could see more positive change.
in reality from this conversation taught me the importance of living. That finding your meaning and purpose in life is important. Not taking life too seriously is also important.
I allowed this conversation to go on as long as it needed to. Putting my phone down and listening as well as I could to the stories this man was sharing. Asking for the next question after a long thought out answer for the question prior.
The only thing that I would change about this conversation, would be that I translated my questions in Spanish. Hence my Google translate of the blog title in Spanish. That is one of the goals with this project, to allow people to speak in their native language.
However if this conversation was in Spanish I feel that their would be times that I would miss the jokes in his stories. But I do believe still in Spanish I would understand his amor para el arte de salsa!
