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Liliana couldn't remember when she started singing.
Her family had moved from place to place for generations. They had no home, Grandmother, great-grandmother - they too were itinerant singers. They couldn't live any other way, a minstrel who settled in one place would cease to be a minstrel.
There were many in this profession who gathered in groups to put on performances together. Liliana did not like this: she liked people, but she always preferred to be independent. She wanted freedom, both in terms of music and lifestyle. So one day she decided to travel alone. When she left her parents, she was only thirteen years old.
She played the whole thing quite irresponsibly. But when she heard one day: "You know, Liliana, we've decided there's no point in wandering around the world anymore. We're moving to the city!", not thinking much of it, she set off on her lonely journey.
Even then she knew what she wanted. She became almost independent at the age of ten. Her urge for freedom did not stem from a need, common in teenagers, to rebel against her parents. On the contrary, ever since she could remember, she had listened to her father's music, her mother's singing, and their songs about faraway lands. They touched her heart. Thanks to art she matured psychologically.
Mother sang about great heroes, and Liliana admired them. She learned about the lives of these people, experienced struggles, loves, and conflicts with them, and dreamed of one day following in their footsteps herself. They were free and in her mind they treated her like a friend. Liliana longed to walk on their paths, to see the same countries, to look at the same sky.
This desire had matured in her for three years. In truth, she was proud of herself for having endured for so long. The fever that consumed her, the feeling of closeness to the characters in the song, drove her to action. She watched her father play, overheard her mother sing. She memorized the lyrics. Finally, she stole a precious lily, passed down from generation to generation, and set out into the world.
- And cha, cha, cha, cha, cha! Now I'll show you, Daddy! I'm gonna be a wandering minstrel!
Her parents searched for her for three days and three nights, but she didn't want to go back, She liked the independent life.
Thus began Liliana Masquerade's great journey. She was now convinced that it was her parents' love that had limited her then. If it hadn't been for that, she would have set out into the world earlier. They claimed she wasn't good enough yet, mocked her ignorance of texts, and even starved her as punishment.
- Ho, ho, ho! It'll be another ten years before you go on stage alone! You're a brat, that's all! We're having rabbit for dinner, but you won't get a bite for your insolence!
- Oh, my! Poor thing! And it smells so good.... However, children who don't listen to their parents don't get to eat!
Oh, well. You don't choose your family.
She thought about them as she walked through the woods the first day after her escape. She thought that they were surely worried after all, but she immediately remembered the last argument.
- If you go, you can never go back! Well, at least there will be one less mouth to feed!
- If you were gone, who knows? Maybe we would have made another baby? Cha, cha, cha!
However, even if they were worried about her or missed her, she still heard such words from them. This convinced her. The possibility of returning weakens the flame of the fighting spirit. People who always have a choice become indecisive.
The wandering artist has no home. He has no native village, no hometown. There is no place he feels connected to, but by doing so he becomes attached to the people who raised him. His biggest test on the road to independence was Breaking ties with his family.
Sometimes Liliana had to drink water from puddles, eat the shoots and roots of plants, and often felt hungry and helpless. One night, as she lay curled up in a ball in the den of some animal, she realized that she missed her parents.
If she had broken down then, she would not have accomplished anything. Since her parents wanted to settle in the city, she would have been married off and had a bunch of kids, and Liliana would have been dusting in an attic somewhere. For Liliana, such a prospect seemed like hell.
A few years later, when as a seventeen-year-old she visited a certain town, she saw the faces of her parents in the crowd. They were walking down the street, holding a little girl in their arms, probably her little sister. She did not stop to talk to them. She straightened up and, proudly puffing out her chest, walked past them like strangers.
Bitter tears ran down her cheeks then. It was nothing. That was her choice. She chose to live a life of song and for song. One day her parents would hear about her and proudly tell them that their daughter had become a great artist known throughout the world. Then the little one will probably also hear stories about the famous Liliana.
That was her little dream. Not at all, she thought, excessive. With that thought she moved on into the world.
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