Garúa: careful what you practice!

Upon asking a Colombian language exchange partner, I discovered that he did not know the word garúa. The word he knows for a persistent drizzle is llovizna. 

Here in Scotland, being well-acquainted with this kind of weather, there is a word for this kind of day: dreich.  As in,

-  What's the matter? 

- Och it's a fair dreich day and ahm jist scunnered.

Fair, here, means not 'fine', but 'very'.  Scunnered, a word my granny used, means 'fed up'.

However, the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española's  Diccionario de Americanismos, (as in, Latin Americanisms) suggests that  garúa is recognised in many countries. 

An Argentinian friend sent me Garúa, the song, in the Goyaneche version.  He had noticed a difference in the lyrics in one line of this version (Biblioteca Popular) and this  Spotify version. 

The former has:

 "No se ve a nadie cruzar por la esquina".

The latter: 

 "Hasta el botón se piantó de la esquina".

El botón is lunfardo slang for a cop. 

My friend thought it was because of censorship by the military dictatorship.  

- And you think it was removed because the military wouldn't have liked the reference to a policeman in dereliction of his duty?

- Es posible, pero no sé.  Durante los quiebres de los gobiernos democráticos, los gobiernos de facto = dictaduras coartar las libertades individuales y cometen censuras de todo tipo, bajo la excusa de "la moral y las buenas costumbres". No sé si fue así con este tango en particular, pero sí ha ocurrido con muchos!

[Maybe, I don't know. During the breakdowns of democratic governments, de facto governments (= dictatorships) restrict individual freedoms and commit censorship of all kinds, under the excuse of 'morality and good customs.' I don't know if this was the case with this particular tango, but it has happened with many!]

The introduction to the piece tells how it came to be written.  Troilo composed the melody in 1943.  In the attic of the Cabaret Tibidabo, located on Av. Corrientes, between Libertad and Talcahuano, Pichuco hummed and played the melody for the poet Enrique Cadícamo. The poet walked home under the persistent drizzle and thus began composing the lyrics.

There is a translation which I think is intended to scan, by Jake Spatz. and one to compare by Derek Del Pilar.

  

*

The song has a warning line that fits well with modern recommendations for mental health.  The singer says he is,  

pensando siempre en lo mismo me abismo y aunque quiera arrancarla, desecharla y olvidarla la recuerdo más.

[Always thinking about the same thing, I fall into despair, and even though I want to tear her, discard her, and forget her, I remember her even more.]

It is a, possibly inadvertent, warning.

Abismarse, a wonderful literary, verb, comes from the noun, abismo, meaning abyss, and means to sink, to become overwhelmed, engulfed, lost.   

What la refers to his not explicit, but I think it's a safe bet that la is a "she".

There is an interesting piece on Quote Investigator about the well known "Watch your words" advice which has been attributed to everyone under the sun:

Watch your thoughts, they become words;

watch your words, they become actions;

watch your actions, they become habits;

watch your habits, they become character;

watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

No matter where it comes from or how far you take that possibly pseduo-proverb, the advice to watch your thoughts is sound

It put me in mind of a a crazy guy  I saw on Instagram the other day, but speaking a lot of sense:

Practice ain't reserved for just musicians and ballplayers. Anything that you do on a daily basis is something that you practice. If you beat yourself up every time you make a tiny little mistake, you're practicing that. If you snap at your friends and family when life is a little more stressful than normal, you're practicing that. And anything that you practice every day, you're gonna get damn good at it. So many people dedicate serious time and energy accidentally practicing things that hurt them. The beautiful thing is once you realize this, you can unlearn your practices. And you'll realize underneath all of these things you accidentally learned, the fun-loving kid that you were when you were young is still underneath it all. Be happy, be silly, realize it's not you. It's the things you practice that are making you mad sometimes, most of the time, okay? Don't be the Michael Jordan of being mad, all right? Come on. Stop practicing the bad stuff and start practicing the stuff that helps you.

[Edited to remove interjection]

The night before my friend sent me Garúa, I was talking to a friend in the milonga about the deaths of our respective parents.  The deaths of our parents had caused us to think on our own end.  My focus had been not to put the burden of care on my own kids, to try and have my life sorted out so that theirs could continue with a minimum of disruption.  I hope to have organised the disposal of my own remains.  I don't know how practical that is.  Is there any point paying for e.g. cremation at home, in advance, if, actually, you die abroad or drown? But at least it is useful to have some clarity over what should happen because when that falls to the next of kin, especially children,  they are not necessarily in a good state to deal with it and the more decisions that have been made and the more plans put in place, the better.  I have no idea if dad actually asked to be buried or in that particular churchyard or whether that was a decision my brother made.  Did dad leave a letter? I still don't know.  I wasn't part of the arrangements. So if you have it planned in advance, and communicated, then it is just then a matter of following a script which is a deal easier than writing it. Such had been the way of my thoughts.  

Having no children, my friend's thoughts about planning for his own demise were very different. He wanted to start planning his thoughts for his last hours. Now I am not at all sure how much you can control that.  His parent fell into a sudden coma, passing away soon after.  My father had weeks in a hospital bed, largely lucid, but sometimes in a kind of hospital delirium people get from being ill, on medication, on a routine not of their choosing, with strangers coming and going and where they can't necessarily even easily tell the time of day. Nevertheless, my friend thought there was value in training your mind for those last hours by going over the good things in your life.

This seemed sensible.  An end-of-life doctor told me some years ago that some people will not let go of life and, even if you try to ease their passing, if they do not feel ready and fight their ending it goes hard for them.   

Endings aside, I thought my friend's idea of daily mental practice for your final hours probably had more intrinsic value as a daily exercise of gratitude, not just for the things you have now but for the things you have been gifted in life.   

And if you can think on the good things of the past, you may be more inclined to appreciate the present.  Mum has this gift.  Even in the grip of Alzheimers, a disease which is like being very slowly consumed into some inexorable awful maw, and after recently losing her husband of 54 years, she said this week that the secret to a happy life was positive thinking and appreciating the people you have in your life. 

And if you can appreciate the past and the present, you may also be able to project your mind into the future and consider the effects of your actions which helps with difficult decisions you may have to make today.