At 20, Paula Seminara went to see Boca by bus from González Catán and passed by (avenida) Laguna. She was the apple of the moon’s eye who forced the more violent boys from 12th grade to ask the Virgin of the Winds to lift up her skirt.
Paula Seminara, of course, it was that “Paula” from Dieguitos and Mafaldasthe song by Joaquín Sabina that stands out in 19 days and 500 nightshis remarkable album from the end of the last century.
Now, in her early 40s, Paula Seminara no longer lives in González Catán, nor does she take the bus to go see Boca, nor is she the inspiring muse of a singer-songwriter.
Now, when she goes to the club, she does it by car as an active participant in xeneize politics and as a public accountant who has studied coaching ontological to reinvent herself and challenge herself all the time, including being president of the club she loves.
And with respect to being the muse of one of the greatest Spanish-American troubadours of all time, she has only capitalized on the phrase From González Catán in collective to title an autobiographical novel.
Or a booklet that, just as he reviews his love relationship with Sabina, also reveals a profound personal transformation. “I finished writing the book a year after traveling the road to Santiago de Compostela. The first impulse was to tell the adventure of the trip, which coincided with a cycle of transformation that she had started after studying coaching and leadership”, reconstructs Seminara from Rome and in contact with VOS.
“I worked a lot personally and the trip was a golden finish. I am a different Paula than the one she started on that journey – she adds. Of course, all that was in Spain…”
“And when I returned to that country after so many years, where I developed a bit of my love story with Joaquín, I found a lot of places, smells… ‘This smells like such a place’, I always say like that. I always smell food, plants, people… Rediscovering all of that after so many years led me to develop that love story. In addition, in the book I relay my passion for Boca ”, he rounds off.
So, Paula points out that her autobiographical novel has these three paths; the one in Santiago, the one with “that” love story, “which has its flavors because Joaquín is a public person”, and the one that toured in Boca, where he went from fan to leader.
“There are three paths that constantly cross each other,” he insists.
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– Does the development of the song correspond to reality?
–There is no one who has described me as well as Joaquín in that song. To that Paula, of course, the 20-year-old. The song spoke of my neighborhood… Of tango, which has so much to do with my life because my grandfather was a composer in the Héctor Varela Orchestra and because my mother has the tango house Bien bohemio. The passion for Boca and everything that counts was as is, because the bus that took me from González Catán passed through Laguna avenue, which is near Flores. I was telling him all these things, he took notes and composed this song in which, like my book, everything has to do with everything. I never cease to amaze myself with this song. I cried the first times I heard it… And today, from a distance, it makes me happy.
Joaquín Sabina does not like to be left
–And is it true that your ex wouldn’t let you go see Joaquín at Gran Rex?
–There you found a poetic license. No one forbade me or forbade me anything. Neither my parents, because when they forbade me something, I left. But it happened that at that time we had not ended on good terms, because Joaquín doesn’t like to be left… It’s just that I felt that the relationship was over. But I’m talking about a relationship that I’m grateful for, because I enjoyed a wonderful being like Joaquín… Over time I learned to see relationships from a little further away and take the best from them. Joaquín left me affection, affection, love for poetry. We used to write to each other in verse and to this day I continue to write romances or sonnets in verse thanks to him.
At its zenith, the relationship between Paula Seminara and Joaquín Sabina was strengthened from that epistolary exchange, just as it had begun.
Because at the first move she made it by leaving a letter at the hotel where Sabina was staying in Buenos Aires, after having seen him live for the first time.
–I am very intrigued to know what that letter said…
–In that letter I told him how I got to the recital, because I didn’t know him… My boyfriend at the time was his fan, but when I went to see him I had a fight with him. So, a bit to get even, I went to the same recital with a friend. In that first letter I left him the phone number. To my surprise, she called me to invite me to another recital. But then there was a second letter.
-I hear you.
–Before you return to Spain after that tour, with which you presented I, my, me, with you (1996), I left him a letter at the Clásica y Moderna bar, which was the place where we had met for the first time. That content never came to light, nor will it, but after that letter he called me again. Obviously, what I wrote touched his heart a little.
–Didn’t you feel like going to see him now as part of this Renaissance tour that brought him back to Argentina?
–I wish you the best and I want you to be happy like all the people I love. But the last few times he hasn’t treated me very well. In the interviews they did with him and they asked him about our relationship, he didn’t speak very highly of me. And I think “if that’s what happens, OK, I come.” Many asked me if I’m going to leave the book. And no, if he has to reach her, he will reach her.
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–Feminism puts the concept of muse into question at the same time that it tends to cancel the bohemian macho who “walks among whores and thieves”… How do you see this issue?
–The deconstruction of concepts of patriarchy that are so deeply rooted is very good. That is good, although without going to extremes. At that time, that Joaquín was the product of another paradigm, of other mandates that are barbaric to deconstruct, I insist. But you always have to go forward. There are many girls who point out to me that he was misogynistic and this or that… For the time it was acceptable. Staying in what was before and destroying it from there is not good for me.
–Is it a heavy burden to have dated such a famous artist?
–There was life after Sabina. In fact, I had the father of my children and some other couples. But I happened to set the bar a little higher. Beyond the fact that he took this thing out of him that he was famous and well-known, I admired Joaquín. And that happens to me: in a couple I seek to be able to admire her. And it’s not that easy to find someone to look up to. In that sense, she does weigh a little. But believe me, there is life after Sabina and anyone.
Paula Seminara and a goal between eyebrows: “I am going to be president of Boca”
What would you say if you had to vindicate the coach ontological?
–For me it is a way of life, a lesson. What it does is that what you can’t achieve, you achieve. As? transforming you Because we believe that one is one way and cannot change. Not so, we can transform all the time. And in that transformation, as for the coaching, we focus on what we want to achieve. And to me, the truth, when declaring that I have a clear objective, then I focus on it and take action. For example, I declared that I want to be the president of Boca and, consequently, I began to focus on that and I will act until I become the president of Boca. Managing emotions, soft skills… There are a lot of edges in the coaching that help to be better people and go for the objectives that we seek.
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–Are you currently a leader of Boca?
–I participated from 2009 to 2015, when (Daniel) Angelici began. In my time there was Pedro Pompilio and Jorge Amor Ameal… Then Pompilio passed away, Ameal was in charge and I started working with him. He proposed to me to form the subsidiaries. The branch of La Matanza, specifically. We did a terrific job in that game, on the sporting side, of taking the cultural embassies of Boca…. We did social work in the neighborhoods, we had our own glass of milk. We work together with the nuns of Father Mario, a few blocks from my childhood home. The work that I led was so great that the club offered me to create the Women’s Secretariat, which did not exist until then. By the end of 2011, I summoned a lot of members, with whom we presented a project for the implementation of a female quota in the board of directors… At that time it was quite difficult to access spaces for participation. Boca is a fairly closed macho club.
-And then what happened next?
–When Angelici continued, I was a little left out, both me and all of the commission. And our work was not continued. But I did participate politically in different spaces. In the last two elections I accompanied José Beraldi, but unfortunately the results were not positive. But from a note that they made me for the book, in which they asked me if I wanted to be president of Boca and I answered “yes, of course”, an impressive repercussion was generated… “Paula Seminara, formerly of Sabina, wants to be president de Boca” was the title. It was very funny because it’s not for now, for the next elections, but I am qualified to hold office. I see the presidents who passed and I do not consider myself less than them, on the contrary. Every day I am training. Now I am studying a master’s degree in sports management with Real Madrid. I prepare to have my best version when the opportunity comes.
More information
Joaquín Sabina published “Sentiendo lo mucho”, a “port and tavern” song