Tracy L. Barnett
Photo by Wyatt McFadden
For Texas Journey magazine
Teresa Champion was just 6 years old when she heard a sound that
would change her life forever. She was the leader in line to go to
catechism class in her South San Antonio barrio when a sharp click-click-click reached her small ears and piqued her curiosity. The next day, she stood last in line, and when the group rounded the corner, she hung back and returned to the place where she’d heard that sound. She peered into a window and stood transfixed.
“I saw this older lady, heavy size, and she was …”— here Teresa stops to demonstrate the motion and sound of the castanets, wooden clapping instruments—
“I had no idea what I was seeing. I stood there, and I forgot about the catechism.”
Every day she did the same, slipping away from her class to go back and watch the
lady dance. After a week, the woman came out and spoke to her.
“Are you a dancer?” she asked in Spanish.
“‘I’ve never danced,’ I told her, and she asked if I’d like to try,” Teresa says.
So began the initiation of a gypsy soul.
Read the rest of the story here
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