Blue Unicorn

When I first met Gus, after he had decided I was the one and before I had done the same, he courted me through countless love letters that today are some of my most dearest possessions. Long, handwritten letters, carefully composed in his neat slanted cursive. He would slip a letter in my school locker without me knowing or hand one to me as we parted. When we went our separate ways for the holidays, he would send letters to me at home, big thick envelopes that would arrive in Seattle from South Texas.

In one of these letters, Gus wrote out the lyrics, in Spanish and his English translation, to a song by Silvio Rodriguez, a Cuban folksinger whose music he admired. The song, Unicornio, is a beautiful, sad story of the loss of something very special, and the yearning and hope that it might someday be returned. I hadn't played Silvio's music for years but I put on one of his albums this afternoon and it took me back to those early days when Gus and I first met. The music brought back so many memories - the newness of each other, the smallness of our world and, in a way, it overwhelmed me with its significance as the soundtrack of our lives at that time. One of the reasons I fell in love with Gus was how different he was from me and the people and places I knew and this music was a big part of that unique person whose life intertwined with mine.

I just spent an hour trying to upload the song to here with no luck, so you'll have to settle for a You Tube link of a live performance. Alternatively, it is such a beautiful song, if you can I would recommend purchasing it through iTunes.