WEBVTT

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This is called "Refugio's Hair."

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Refugio was my
grandmother's name.

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It was also my
great-grandmother's name

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and my mother-in-law's name.

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When it happens, it happens.

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Refugio, by the way, if
you don't know the name,

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it translates literally as
refuge, or as a name, Ruth.

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In the old days of our
family, my grandmother

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was a young woman whose hair
was as long as the river.

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She lived with her
sisters on the ranch La

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Calera, the land of the lime,
and her days were happy.

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But her uncle Carlos
lived there too.

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Carlos, whose soul had
the edge of a knife.

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One day, to teach
her to ride a horse,

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he made her climb onto
the fastest one bareback

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and sit there as he held
its long face in his arms.

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And then he did the
unspeakable deed for which

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he would always be remembered.

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He called for the
handsome baby Pirrín,

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and he placed that
child in her arms.

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With that picture of a
Madonna on horseback,

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he slapped the shank of
the horse's rear leg.

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That horse did
what a horse must,

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racing full toward
the bright horizon.

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But first, that horse
ran under the álamo trees

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to rid its back of
this unfair weight--

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This woman full of tears
and this baby full of love.

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When they reached the
trees and went under,

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my grandmother's hair,
which had trailed her,

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equal in its
magnificence to the tail

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of the horse, that hair rose
up and flew into the branches

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as if it were a thousand arms,
all of them trying to save her.

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The horse ran off and
left her, the baby still

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in her arms, the two of
them hanging from her hair.

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The baby looked only
at her and did not cry,

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so steady was her cradle.

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Her sisters came
running to save them.

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But the hair would not let go.

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From its fear, it held on.

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All of it, all of
it, from its fear,

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it held on and had to
be cut from her head.

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From that day on, my
grandmother wore her hair

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short like a scream, but it was
long like a river in her sleep.

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