Finding My Flair

I watch him unfurl a muleta and enter the ring alone, pacing the dirt to execute a complex ballet of steps and advances with an imaginary bull before the live beast is let loose to face him. Finally, the yearling is ushered in with all the expectancy of a celebrity at the Golden Globes. She blinks in bewilderment and her nostrils flare as scents of sun, dust and sweat commingle. He approaches her slowly until he reaches an invisible threshold. The vaca flicks her ears back and rasps her hoof against the dirt. And then – his heel striking earth, a call of challenge uttered from somewhere deep within his chest. The vaca lowers her head for the charge. She is swept beneath the muleta as he pivots gracefully to let her pass, as in a dance. She charges him again; this time he stumbles in his effort to confront her and his precision dissolves into a clumsy attempt to escape. On the third charge, his composure returns and the vaca’s desperate low reverberates in our ears as her eyelashes graze his stone-washed jeans. Then it’s my turn. She looks deceptively placid. I muster my most imposing stance and approach her – shoulders back, spine straight, head high. My insides are a quivering jellyfish buffeted by the churning waters of a hurricane. And then it happens, all in a blur so that it’s done before it can even begin. The vaca charges towards me and despite my best efforts to dazzle the crowd, I remain rooted in her path and she head-butts me in the crotch, lifting me off the ground before I stagger backwards in befuddlement. I barely have time to compose myself before I’m being charged again. This time she makes more contact with the red muleta than with my crotch. I hear cheers and claps from behind the burladeros: “¡Bien hecho! Well done!” I may not be the next Cristina Sánchez – there were no red carnations thrown – but I have found my matador´s flair.