Leaving home and everything else behind for the flickering promise of a better future is a story as old as the very desire to change one’s fortune.
My story is the story of many. An intense love for the soil underneath my bare feet and the people that walk on it – but the desire to become the best version of yourself sometimes demands a heavy toll: putting all your fragile eggs in one basket and saying goodbye to those essential things. Too dense of a story to tell in a single chapter, so this is the first puzzle piece of a growing tapestry – one that I aim to complete this year in this series.
In my case, home is a small, enchanted patch of land in the middle of the ocean – Puerto Rico, but you’d have to go deeper into its heart – a valley known by its indigenous name, Caguas. Donned in a rigid armor of thick walls colored by age and moss. Once meant to repel invaders, failing miserably time and time again, this fortification is now a docile tourist attraction equipped with muted cannons, a battlefield now fit to fly kites – our bats with crazed eyes and sleeping watch towers.
Those watch towers stoically face the ocean providing a clear view of the vast unknown beyond our shores. From here, we launch ourselves into the dark of night hoping we read the stars well enough to reach our dreams to the sound of crashing waves, the güiro and clave.
Healers, painters, jesters, theater wizards, athletes, pretenders, misbehaving rabbits & justices of the supreme ilk – the talent that overcrowds those watch towers seeps right through the wave-lacerated stone. The very waves that may keep us restrained and from leaving. Roots exposed and hungry for new dirt, we launch ourselves into the night.
Art has always been the core of my story. My passions, my career choice, my desire to leave the valley to find myself. As I embark down this journey, LUNA is born. The moonlight beacons us into the uncertain waters ahead – a flame that has lured moths time and time again.
We are headed to your shores.
We bring our gifts and mettle.
We Are Legion.