Encanto Duo: "Surface Pressure - Jessica Darrow" & "What Else Can I Do - Diane Guerrero"

I thought I’d start with something a little different for the first song of the year. After all, if you never do anything differently, you’ll never get a different outcome.

So today I’m fusing a song and some poetry. I recently watched Encanto, and boy was I blown away by the layers of storytelling.

What stuck out to me were the sister songs, which were so clearly about the weight of societal pressures that we put on each other, that we accept, and that we often have to strive to break ourselves away from. As I looked back on the two, what seem to be, very different sisters, I saw the same human squeezed into a shape they were meant to conform to. It’s a lovely idea that though pressure creates diamonds it also shatters them, and that perfection is also the enemy of the artist. It brought to mind this quote by Anais Nin.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

I think that quote is both beautiful and powerful. Do not let the fear of the unknown stop you from doing things you’ve never dreamt of. You can move mountains if you start with a single stone.

So today, with a little miracle catching spark in my chest, I chose the Encanto Duo "Surface Pressure” featuring Jessica Darrow & "What Else Can I Do” featuring Diane Guerrero as my, why not, say yes, believe you can do whatever you try, song for a, listen to no one but your heart, follow the hope, what else can you do, Monday.