I needed to feel something and I went to an Easter procession

PalmI am fascinated by symbols: minimal units of communication, which mean very specific things with very few resources. Language concentrates in them, acidic, explosive. My senses react to them like taste buds to monosodium glutamate. Pure stimulus. They are a mystery and our collective imaginary, the ultraviolet light that allows us to decipher them. Recognizing their meaning is addictive because it speaks to me of myself, reminds me of things I didn't know I knew and that help me interpret the world.

A border, a gold leaf, a trumpet and a drum, the color lilac in contrast with the color red, for example: elements so represented that they have been emptied of meaning, because each person has circumscribed them to their own, to a moment, a feeling or a specific sensation. They disturb you, they move you, they take you out of your rut. Or they connect you with a past, ancient 'self' that you sense, but are not sure if you have lived. An Almodóvar film, your grandmother's hands, a sculpture in Rome. They make you feel something, which is what I want, what I need right now. Perhaps that's why I went to see a Holy Week procession.

I would never in my life think of attending mass of my own free will, nor baptizing my children, nor praying to God for anything. At eight years old, I decided I wouldn't do my communion because my older cousin had already given me a review of the catechism and it turned out to be 'totally boring'. Even so, something drives me to seek out that primitive, anachronistic, impassive-to-the-passage-of-time thing. I seek to live, for a moment, something that is capable of resisting the onslaught of years, and sometimes I find it in a rock; other times, in the stainless steel bar of a cafe, and other times, in the eccentricity of a Holy Week float.

And it's not a matter of spirituality. The last time I meditated was, unintentionally, sitting at Bar Isleño, in Santa Catalina. Its red faux leather chairs and its coffee in a glass cup induced me into the deepest trance, as if rocking me, in suspension. I suppose it's the idea that someone, at some point, has already lived this, that they looked through this very window onto Carrer d'Anníbal. It's the idea that I'm part of something bigger, more important, that has been happening for a long time. I suppose it's this idea of belonging, of identity, of tradition.

I feel peace when I see that certain things have always been this way, that they have refused to change, that they remain authentic. It gives me hope that no, that not everything is yet to be invented or to come, that we still have the power to preserve, to continue being who we are, at least, for a little while longer. It helps me to fight against bitter omens like those in this verse by Maria Jaume in ‘Sonen les campanes’, from Sant Domingo Forever: “There will be a day when none of us will live in this town. One day, we will be others and everything in order”.

In short, it makes me believe that there is an alternative to the frantic pace of globalization and to being swallowed up, and to becoming one of those images that artificial intelligence created when it was still imperfect: an indecipherable amalgam of things, a totum revolutum, a grotesque puree that no one wants to identify with. New, artificial, soulless: like a Sonny Angel or a Labubu. Ephemeral due to its lack of value, easily replaceable.

And of course, I worry that our tendency to fight against this will always be the most stale nostalgia. That's why I was talking about symbols. Perhaps C. Tangana was the first of my generation to know how to use them. He made us see popular folklore from another perspective, as something that belonged to us a little, with a touch of recognition and less rejection. The after-dinner custom, the tackiness, the kitsch-canyon style. I won't say with pride, but with less shame. He found the code to bring it closer to us and, more than that, to make us want to make it our own, without reservations. Something that Rosalia hasn't achieved as much. She, who tells us to separate the artist from the work, has reached a point where we don't know where her artistic creation ends and where her faith begins.

And this is what scares us: swallowing the discourse wrapped in a song. C. Tangana allowed us to dance a step of Holy Week to techno beats without feeling like we were claiming anything. He, damn it, even made us believe we were subversive. In Rosalia's work, God is too included in the package. This is where our discomfort lies. One thing is the sample, the symptom, the ritual, and another is the belief, the liturgy, the confessionalism. I prefer to be more Sorrentinian in this, and bet on performance, decadence, and sacrilege: to be a sensual nun in The New Pope or Parthenope dressed only in the church's jewels. I want to take only what speaks to us about ourselves to, somehow, feel something.