Your nervous system will naturally feel calm around people with pure intentions and authentic energy, trust it popped out of nowhere, wink, the other days, and I’ve just referenced it to my bestie over the phone, in one of our Called you to tell you this joke turned deep disco conversations of two hours. Fantastic and here we are, full circle. Three hours later, she calls to tell me the joke. It’s real and interesting, so it’s funny, success! Music is blasting through the speaker in the bedroom and I’m spinning, dancing, sitting, laying, you know the drill.

Circles. Listening to a song, as loud as it can go, in your headphones, on repeat for as long as your run in the morning, comes close to what people described their experience with music on mushrooms to be like. I wondered then whether what I was experiencing with music was accurately that without being on anything. At any time of day or night. Something fabulous in my hands, though, goes perfectly with it, I’ll admit. A peach. A hand. I will find out one day. Until then, since this is something I’ve been doing for as long as I basically know myself, I can boldly claim that it’s one of the best feelings out there. For me. It doesn’t happen on demand, it just happens when it happens. And I’m sucked into this moment in time that feels like fresh air, like you can actually hear your heart beating, calm, then extreme. Feels like staring into a gem, into one’s eyes, good loving kissing, anything grand that comes to mind. Wait, that’s the trick, you forget about the mind, this is what this moment is all about.

Dad calling me this morning, on the 1st of June, maybe for the first time ever this early in the morning just to congratulate me on the day, is another feeling like that. 

Or mom calling, a couple of days before, to ask me if I heard about, if I heard about… I said that I did. It was about Tina. It’s sad, but it’s the beauty Tina brought into my relationship with mom that’s way more beautiful than it is sad. It’s the beauty that Tina brought. Full stop. The fine line between a fairy and family. It’s not just about her music, her music was and is just as much in our house as it was anyone’s else we liked, it was and is something. Music is magical, oui, but mom has been, ever since I can remember myself, calling me Tina, short for Cristina. Not all the time, only once in a while, in circumstances I can’t put in a box, but can attach a certain tone to. It always felt natural, I can’t imagine Tina coming from anyone else but mom. It comes with a sort of seriousness or responsibility, I’m sure she hasn’t been calling me Tina to reference The Tina (although she herself is a fan), yet there’s something so soft to this intersection. Obviously, without a doubt, somewhere in the back of my mind, Tina, as a fairy, pops out every time. Then, my mom and I discuss the matter, it’s particular, it’s when Tina becomes family.

A question was asked to me once. Do you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say to yourself Ooh, you’re Tina Turner and you’re the best. My answer was Absolutely no. I’m far removed from my stage persona when I am home. I’ve never allowed Tina Turner to totally take over my life. I love being me too much. I love me more than I love the personification of my career. It’s two totally separate – if we can call it – entities. On stage, I’m performing, short dress, hair, I’m giving a show. I like to give the show wholehearted, every inch of whatever I can do to please the people. But offstage, I consider myself really a great person! I like me very much. I like Anna Mae Bullock. It’s a different personality, because I’m not acting, I’m myself and I’m enjoying that very much. Even now, casually said Tina in an interview popping out on my instagram.

The Best… Where do I even begin? The beginning. This song, ooh, is one of the hymns I marched into what I had no clue would have become one of the best things life is gifting us with. Dancing and when that dancing is shared with someone who enjoys dancing, too, ooh, few things come close to that. I keep on saying few things, but if I were to add every time I’ve ever said few things come close to, ooh, quite a few times would be the signs of the times. See? 

It could’ve happened at 5am (as we were dancing in some club we enjoyed or at the parties we gave ourselves at our homes when the parents were out, parents’ offices, some place we went on holiday with our then boyfriends, it really didn’t matter and they all called me bébé) for The Best to start and no excuse, no pain (sometimes, the heels were too high and we were unstoppable), no nothing could’ve stopped us to stand up (that is if any of us was sitting, usually, we danced the whole night long, it’s why we were out to begin with) and forget about everything. The first notes and – swoosh – a space rocket took us somewhere. Dancing and singing like it was the two of us only on the dance floor. If it really was the two of us only on the dance floor, it’s very possible that we wouldn’t have danced anyway. Apparently, we were shy. But not with the right atmosphere. It’s the authentic energy we began with and – swoosh – we were in. Long hair don’t care. It didn’t matter where, when, who, what, nothing stopped one or the other, Ral or myself, to, literally, drag each other on the dance floor or on a big speaker, a table, a chair, anything that resembled the stage or the actual stage in the club we liked and throw our hair in the air. From the beginning of our dancing era. Life. Teenagers turned grown-ups with a sort of Tina twist that feels like forever.

Then, we discovered the live version of Proud Mary performed by Tina and Beyoncé and we were hooked. Something greater than us or The Best of us, huh, took over and it was, is, one of the best feelings out there. See? Jees. Joy. Every now and then, we kinda like to do things nice and easy, but somehow we never, ever do nothing completely nice and easy, you know why, why, you know why, why, because we like to do it, we like to do it, we like to do it nice and rough(!!!!!!!). Long hair don’t care all over the place. This is the way we do Proud Mary. Pam, pam, pam, pam, pam. Left a good job in the city… It’s the part we enjoyed doing the most. The choreography, every fingers’ snap, the tone, the relaxation, the calmness and the extreme, the vavavoom.

It’s the fun that comes with the fearlessness, but as soon as the word came to mind, another one came just as fast. You can’t really forget about the mind. Its alignment with your body and spirit takes you to space, in fact, fun fact. It’s the fun that comes with vulnerability. Presence. You’re sucked into grace. Into being, into the truth, into everything. It’s everything Tina will forever be about. It’s – drumroll – passion. More than just a word, but long hair don’t care. 

I’m, now, asking mom why Tina. 

I just liked to call you Tina. 

So, no connection to Tina. 

I’ve always loved her energy.

Some things happen and, at times, it’s only later that you see their wondrous, sweet meaning. We saw the Tina HBO documentary together, a while ago. Tina was, is, indeed, everything we’ve always felt that she was, is, and so much more. Above all, a beautiful soul. It’s what connected us to her at all times.

It’s interesting how you feel an indescribable intimacy with people from far away, while other people, right in your vicinity, are looking for ways to invade it without permission. Intention is a funny thing, you can’t see it, but it’s the pinkest elephant of them all. It speaks volumes when it comes from love and you can’t stop kissing the people. It speaks volumes when it comes from fear, also, and people start acting weird. Joy is forever here as your compass. As loud as it can go. And so is chemistry.

Long hair don’t care. My Gabi does care, though, she’s been cutting it for fifteen years, she always tells me to send her pictures after I style it myself, at home. She’s just as curious about hair as I am. I love her. And hair.

Whoop, a circle.