Tips on Where to Buy Shoes

Shoe Diva.com will give gret advice and cheap prices.

Sewing Lesson

I am past thinking that it's clothes that get you the dance. Clothes are the glitter on the spun-sugar filigree on the frosting on the cake. It's the cake that gets you the dance.

Nevertheless.

Everyone at the Tango Colorado Hot Summer Nights milonga had better admire my top tonight.

I have been working on it since noon. I bought it at Goodwill, a short and sheer, black minidress with stars and vines embroidered on it in ivory thread. Very vintage. Very fragile. I'll wear it over a camisole and slacks. Very casual. Very elegant.

(The invitation to the milonga specified "casual-elegant" attire. Only in Colorado ... or on Project Runway.)

But the sleeves. When I reach up as if into the embrace, they go all cockeyed. Way too tight. I will slit them right down the middle, hem them back, and -- uh-oh. They look just like what they are: sleeves cut in half.

It's 2 p.m. It has taken me 2 hours to get this far.
6.5 hours to go until the milonga.

I know the effect that I'm after. Butterfly sleeves, fluttery things. I try pleating around the shoulders. Halfway down the sleeve. Gathers. Folds. Shirring. Cursing.

4 p.m.
Countless times in and out of this tight, fragile dress. If I am not careful, it will tear. Cursing is OK, but my touch has to be tender. If you've ever had a colicky baby brother, you know this routine: Gently singing, gently rubbing his taut, tiny back, gently begging him to please shut the hell up.

5:30 p.m.
Three hours until I have to leave for the milonga. It will take half that time to shower and primp and putz.

My buddy Marcus used to throw parties to watch Project Runway. When dark fell, he'd haul the big-screen TIVO-TV onto his oversize deck, and all 20-30 of us would pull up our chairs.

We liked audience participation: critiquing and gossiping and speculating on who would get the ax next. We also liked this game:

Every time they showed the clock, we raised our drinks, shouted CLOCK! and drank. It was exactly as sophomoric as it sounds.

5:38 p.m.
I wouldn't mind playing that game right this minute.

***

6:00 p.m.
Actually, Project Runway comes in handy as I'm altering these sleeves. Between CLOCK!s, apparently, I learned how to mess around with clothes.

Rule 1: Persevere until Tim Gunn says "Time's up!"
Rule 2: It's OK to tear out the stitches as many times as you like.
Rule 3: Or don't like, but must.

The umpteenth time I am standing in front of the mirror, disappointed in the results, this comes back: The Project Runway designers altered the clothes while the models were wearing them.

I grab a needle. This is a little different; I am playing both roles. There also is this: The least coordinated woman in the world is about to attack herself with needle and thread.

6:30 p.m.
Fronts of the sleeves are done. Now for the back. Clothes are not symmetrical, you know. Damn.

As it turns out, the backs go quickly. What I learned from doing the front applies in its own way to the back. How cool is that?

7 p.m.
I've been at this 7 hours.
1.5 hours left to shower and primp and putz.

Perfect!

Canyengue!

Randy Fisher workshop, very cool. To come. Soon.

Tayari Tag: I Need Your Help!

Time for a little grown up tag courtesy of Tayari Jones! (We writers will do anything to put off actually writing.)

There are rules for this game and here they are:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

It would be good if the facts were interesting. Scintillating--that would be great!

Hmmmm.

I can't think of 8 interesting or scintillating facts about me. Here's your chance!

Click on the Comments link below to tell a fascinating (or interesting ... or at least entertaining) fact about One Heart Dancing. I'll pick the 8 I like best and post them.

Feel free to play by writers rules: You can use creative license, poetic justice, freedom of speech. In other words: As long as you tell the truth, you can lie. Make it good.

While you're doing that, I am going to round up my 8 favorite tango bloggers, including the Shoe Diva and Tangospam, so they can play too.

Meanwhile, here are two other Tayari Tag players: Pajama Gardener and The Merry Peri

The Love Songs of J. K. Rowling

I love lots of things about the Harry Potter books, especially the inventiveness. But the thing I love most of all is how JK Rowling reveals her own heart. Every book is a love letter to her own kids. Every book says over and over; "Growing up is hard. You are strong and precious. You will be OK."

****

So Here's the Plan

This morning I go to Mary Alice's deserted house. She is out of town for a long weekend.

I will avoid the neighbor who is coming to play with the cats. There will be no radio, TV. No Internet, no phone calls, no mail or e-mail or voice-mail. I will not go anywhere, not for a drive, not for a walk. I will not even look out the window.

Sometime today at Mary Alice's, amazon will deliver He-Whose-Name-Is-Everywhere.

By opting for home delivery, I am delaying the start of the book for several hours. But I couldn't risk this: Standing in line to buy, someone who has just picked up their copy flips to the back page and shouts: HARRY DIES!!!*

I will not say hello or even thank you to the person who delivers it, lest they let something slip.

While I am waiting for the book I will practice. I will turn the volume down on the stereo before I turn it on, lest Mary Alice have it tuned to a radio talk show that is analyzing You-Know-Who.

I will dance only to DiSarli. I trust him to be too much the gentlemen to let slip a spoiler.

When the package arrives, I will not open it. I will take my one big risk, drive to Melinda's a half mile away.

Melinda will open the package, tear out the last 20 pages, send me away. Under no circumstances am I to be trusted.

Sometime on Sunday I will drive back to Melinda's. She will hand me the pages one by one as I read them. If she talks, I will crumple up the pages I have read and stuff them in her mouth.

Tango class begins at 7 p.m. Sunday. Will I make it?

I read about 1 page per minute. The book is 780 pages. That's 13 hours. Add a few hours for sleep and showers and drinks of water and driving back and forth to Melinda's. A few hours more to put my socks back on every time Rowling knocks them off.

I need 24 hours.

Amazon promises my book will arrive no later than 7 p.m. Saturday.

Nina, I might be a few minutes late to class.


*I SAID yesterday I am making that up. I am not a spoiler!

Never Has There Been Such a Dilemma

Merc tonight. Daniel Diaz and Jose Paris.

I want to go. But I am not sure I can work up the courage. I dread what could happen.

It would be easy to go if I could be sure that the leads would keep a certain something to themselves. People in general these days seem eager to share things they should keep private, or even secret.

I know what you're thinking. What could be worse than the dance of 7/17?

Here's what I fear most tonight:

It is nearing midnight. The crowd thins and quiets. The bandoneon and piano sing of nostalgia and loneliness. If you have any heart at all, it must go out to them.

Regretfully, I prepare to remove my shoes. Like Cinderella, I must be gone before midnight.

But as I bend to unbuckle, a man catches my eye. Handsome, dashing, charming.

He approaches. I stand. He takes me into his embrace.

Off we float on the lush, romantic strains of a melancholy vals. The floor opens before us. Mr. Diaz's bandoneon sings only for us. Our every step is perfectly attuned. We are goregous. We are the envy of the gods.

Of course I am carried away. Of course my lead knows it. He gathers me close and closer. This is bliss. And he whispers ...

I READ IT ON THE INTERNET!

HARRY DIES!!!!

Sorry About the Vanishing Posts

In writing you can say anything, you have to at a certain point. But starting a post with the p-word takes a lot of moxie.

First I posted it, then took it down. Then softened it up with the post on Stephen King. Then buried it with a follow-up post. (An artistic error, rushing to post the next piece of the story too soon. The whole point of this blog is serial storytelling; rushing the story is like rushing a step in tango--timing is what makes the whole thing hang together.) Then took it down again. Then slept on it. And now up again.

Putting that post up is as nerve-wracking as walking into the Merc on Friday nights. And keeping it up there is as hard as staying at the Merc as the room fills up.

Here's the deal:

If I keep the posts online, I can go to the Merc.

Diaz and Paris are playing on Friday.

See you then.

Tango Hiatus, Belated Part 2: Repeat of an Earlier Post, This Time in Context

I have a long fuse, especially with myself.

But when the patience runs out ... stand aside. When I make up my mind to do something, it gets done. Nothing can stand in my way.

That includes my stomach. … But since I decided to go back to tango, my stomach has gone Woody Allen. …

My stomach doesn't understand something.

I am going to tango. But I am not going back.

I have lost patience with that self-demeaning self.

The mutiny is over. I am turning this boat.

[To see the original post in its entirety, click here]

Warning: A Little Stephen King

Stephen King explains what he strives for in his fiction:

When his mother was a kid, chewing gum wasn't that easy to come by. So she used to save hers. At night, she would take it out and stick it on the desk or the bedpost. In the morning, she'd grab it, pop it in her mouth and rush off for school.

One morning, she grabbed the gum and popped it in her mouth. Failing to notice the live moth trapped in it. Beating its wings against her teeth, her palate, her tongue. Oops. Before she could think, she chomped down. Bit that big bug in half.

King said he always wanted to write stories that would make people feel the same EWWWW he felt when his mother told him that story.

.

Warning: Yesterday's entry has a little Stephen King in it.

Tango Hiatus, Belated Part 1: If Half Truths are Untruths, All This--Since the Festival--Has Been a Lie

The tango hiatus wasn't about stomach or mind games. It was about a penis.

If that word makes you jump, imagine how I felt when a partner led me through a step that made my thigh brush against him. Again and again and again. It went something like this:

Nasty-Pass 1: It's an accident. These things happen in tango. Ignore it.

NP 2: It can be hard in the first dance of a tonda to gauge exactly where to place legs and hips. These things happen in tango. That's what they say on the listserv. Be cool.

3: This guy is more of a beginner than I thought, based on our previous dances. He only knows a few steps, and he's not very good about correcting his placement on this particular one. Patience is a virtue. Don’t overreact.

Inner Coach: Many men dance tummy-to-tummy. Just because you find it disgusting doesn't mean that it is. Followers should learn to dance in every style. Remember that guy who told about a woman who resisted a milonguero's very close embrace? Remember how he acted out her part, flailing helplessly until she finally submitted? Remember how everyone laughed? Don't be that woman; don't be the laughingstock here.

4: It's me. I need to adjust. Clearly he's done all that he can.

5: Let me try that again. This guy is actually a better dancer than me. He's challenging me to get it right.

6. Maybe it's my posture. Nina says if anything touches below the solar plexus, you get what you ask for. Maybe I am asking for trouble, maybe I had bad posture in a previous dance with this guy, and he’s just now worked up the courage to answer the invitation. How do I convey that he misunderstood, that sometimes I just have bad posture, that I didn’t mean to mislead him, that I am sorry? Right this minute, my posture is as good as I can make it. Trust me, it is!

Inner Coach: Don’t overreact. Remember the first community dance at the Turn? Remember Deb Sclar, bending close to share her thumb-in-the-armpit trick? Remember in lifesaving, how you reached right in, grabbed the armpit and twisted? Remember how much that hurt—and how well it worked? Don’t be afraid to be violent. Remember growing up in Detroit. Get a grip.

7: Lucky number! Thanks, Deb!

8: Hey! What is this? With my thumb in his armpit, I do not believe he should move his embracing arm down to my waist and cinch it up like an iron band. Now when I push off from the armpit, all it does is leverage my hips closer to his. I am not much of an armful, lots of guys snug up like this. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t overreact. But it would be nice to be able to breathe.

9: I can always dance like a duck. It ain't pretty, but it works. ... More like a duck. ... More.

Inner Coach, sharply: You are going to throw your back out!

10: How can I interrupt this pattern? Pretend to miss the step. Hesitate. Step away. Whatever I do, he adjusts. Does he think I am lagging? Doing adornments? Why can I not make myself clear?

11: Was there ever a guy more clueless?

11.5: Are we done yet?

12: Dammit! Stop that!

Inner Coach: You made it! This is tango, these things happen. Everyone says so. You'll live. Go home. Shower. Have some brownies.

I do not believe I am required to say thank you. Goodbye and good riddance.

That goes for tango, too.

The End

.


[That is the story of the tango hiatus. At least, that's how the story started.].

Great Moments in Tango Teaching: David Hodgson, the Nancy Reagan of Tango

Glenlivet takes me into his embrace, then pulls back to inspect me with narrowed eyes.

“Are you going to misbehave?” he asks suspiciously.

“No!” I say innocently. I look him straight in the eye. It’s true, I am not! I am going to do exactly what my teacher told me to do.

I grin.

Before this set began, David called the women to one end of the studio, leaving the men at the other. “Come close,” he said. We crowded around him. Then he gave us our secret marching orders:

Just Say No.

In the next set, we are to refuse a step. We do not miss the step, we make that clear. We simply refuse to take it.

Saying no is a bit of a problem for me. I don’t like to be rude. This leads me to dance with men I’d rather not. And once dancing, or in some other scrape, what choice do you have? You can’t exactly stop in the middle of things.

David says, Give it a try.

We walk the length of the studio to our partners. We are a pack of gunslingers descending on unsuspecting townsfolk. We try to be straightfaced and sober. One of us fails. Hence Glenlivet’s suspicion.

Refusing a step is easier said than done. Glenlivet doesn’t so much lead your feet as your axis. Your axis is always enroute somewhere. Refusing a step means letting your axis go off without you.

i.e., take a dive.

On the other hand, Glenlivet is a big strong guy, and in all the time we have been dancing, since we were rank beginners, he has never let me hit the floor. Even when I thought for sure we were goners. I trust him completely.

I’m game. Now, to figure out how.

How do you stop water from flowing? Glenlivet’s style is definitive. There are no hesitations, no cracks where you can insert a refusal.

As we round the first corner, I still haven’t found an opening.

Then I hear grunts and giggles. Secret is out. No time to wait for an opening. It's now or never!

Heedless of consequences, I plant my feet.

Glenlivet takes a big sidestep. Schwing! My axis takes off with him, my feet stay where we were. For a split second I am slung between two points, feet over there, shoulders over here. Very cool! If Nick and Tara were doing this, it would be a very nuevo beautiful colgada type move.

I don’t know what passes through Glenlivet’s mind, but the giggling has to give him a clue.

Now he knows the score, it’s a bit of a battle. He doesn’t know when to expect it, but he’s pretty determined not to allow it. I also don’t know when to expect it myself, but I am pretty determined that it will happen.

It adds a little suspense, a little spice. That’s the point, David says.

But there’s another point, too. A serious and helpful one, good for beginners to hear. David stops everything to make it:

If a partner, male or female, abuses you physically, emotionally, or energetically, this is what you do, he says.

Heedless of consequences, plant your feet. Dig in your heels. Just say No.

When the oaf takes notice, say "Thank you" and walk away.

Looking for Carlos Gardel? Scroll down.

Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part 5: Labyrinth? What Labyrinth?

It’s not as woo-woo as all that, Glenlivet says.

He’s right. I admit it. There is no end of our capacity to construct magnificent, exquisite edifices to explain our reality.

It is perhaps possible that I could be making a teeny bit too much of all this, reading a teeny bit too much into your dance, constructing an elaborate story around you rather than reading what’s there.

Or, that I’m only doubting my construct because rationality stuck a knife in it.

A superficial wound: quick to bleed, quick to heal.

I tell you, it’s the Circ de Soleil inside my head. Or possibly a Busby Berkley musical.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part 4: The Whole Truth

Every time I am asked to dance, I have to choose what I will be: blank slate, con man, illusionist, daredevil …

… or puppet?

I do not come to the dance to tell my own story. I come to be a character in yours. You are the storyteller; I am the puppet.

That’s the half-truth that makes it a lie.

Nobody gets out of it that easily. Everything is steeped in story.

If you come to the dance as a blank slate, a con man, an illusionist, that in itself reveals your story. Ditto me and the whole puppet thing.

We are characters in one another’s story. I help you tell your story; you help me tell mine.

But consider this: We write the stories as we read them. We believe that the story as we read it is the story that is there. Every story I read is a story I make up, and that includes the story you bring to the dance.

And this: Strong-willed puppets get ideas of their own. They can turn the story on you.

And this: We all are skilled storytellers. We know how to lie.
.

Fall in Love with Carlos Gardel: Hear Him Sing, Watch Him Dance, Learn His Story

It snowed in Buenos Aires today. Cold, wet heavy. (See it in traffic. See it in a park.)

This makes tangueros’ hearts light.

Why? Because, as Alberto explains: “The only memories of a snow fall in Buenos Aires date back to 1918 and 1955, that is why poet Raul Gonzalez Tuñon once wrote about Gardel,

“Nobody has surpassed his touching voice, on the face of a record or in the rose of the air. Perhaps, when the snow falls again over our city, another voice may come close to match his.”

Perhaps he exaggerated. I went exploring online to see.

Wow!

Listen:

• Mi Noche Triste, the first tango he sang. The 1917 version is so romantic you want to swoon 90 years later. The 1930 version is meaty. (Get the lyrics, and more info about sentimental tangos.)


• Volver from the movie El Dia que me quieras.


• Tomo y obligo, the last tango he performed, hours before his tragic death.

Watch a movie clip: Gardel dances beautifully.

Gardel on Singing and Living Tango

“It is not enough to have the most melodious voice to intone a tango. No. In addition, it is necessary to feel it. One has to live in its spirit.

“I live it, I feel it in the sweet glance of a beautiful and well-endowed woman who sees me drive by in my fast "voiturette" I know that I am the tango when after leaving the racetrack the crowd of men follow me with their glances; I am not deceived when the tailor takes pains to make me his best suit or the saleswoman looks for the prettiest necktie for me.

I know that the tribute is to the tango. I am for them the tango. And I like it, because I feel more like I belong here.

Even though I intone a sweet French song, even though people listen to my beautiful notes of "Parlez moi D'Amour", I know that I am the singer of tangos who lends himself for other songs. (Gardel's comment for: Noticias Gráficas, Buenos Aires, Sept. 21, 1933). From Gardel Web

The Story of a Legend
From Gardel’s Eternal Smile, by Alberto Paz

Untimely Death

It was during a promotional tour for his latest film, El dia que quieras, that Gardel and Lepera met their untimely deaths. First Puerto Rico, then Cuba and finally Colombia were visits that attracted large crowds eager to see, touch and listen to Carlos Gardel.

Towards the end of the tour, Gardel and his entourage boarded a plane at Medellin airport for a short flight to Cali, where he would make his final appearance on a radio program before returning to New York, in time to board a ship to Buenos Aires to fulfill a promise he had made to his mother, that is spending more time with her.

The aircraft never got completely airborne as it suddenly veered of course and slammed into another aircraft waiting to enter the runway. Among a twisted pile of melting metal and an infernal blaze, Gardel ended his mortal existence.

Gardel’s Early Life
Carlos Gardel began singing at a very young age. Raised in poverty and with limited means of survival, he managed to get singing gigs at weddings, birthdays and other family receptions. His repertoire was mostly made out of Creole compositions, a genre that included folk songs and rural milongas typically accompanied by one or more guitars.

Gradually he began to hang out at some seedy cantinas surrounding the old Mercado de Abasto, a sort of central wholesale market. Visitors today may have noticed a subway station under Corrientes Avenue named after Gardel. A super modern shopping center stands on the grounds of the old Mercado de Abasto.

At one of those cantinas he faced Uruguayan folk singer Jose Razzano in what supposed to be a duel for supremacy and ended up becoming a sensational duo that began performing at theaters, clubs, and cabarets around the country and in neighboring Uruguay.

Gardel’s First Tango
The story goes that sometime in 1917 Gardel was approached in Montevideo by a street poet with a penchant for writing risky lyrics to existing Tango music. Gardel loved what Pascual Contursi had written for a Tango named Lita composed by Samuel Castriota. In private gatherings he was amused at Contursi's clever use of lunfardo expressions to describe the sappy tale of a pimp in love who laid awake at night hoping for the return of his former whore.

It began with, Percanta que me amuraste, en lo mejor de mi vida... Woman who left me at the best moment of my life; and ended with, Porque tu luz no ha querido, mi noche triste alumbrar... Because your light (talking about a lamp in the room) has not wanted to illuminate my sad night. And those three last words became the title of the first recognized Tango lyrics, and the onset of a rich chapter in the glorious book of Tango history.

Going against the advice of his friends, Gardel decided to take a chance and sung the Tango (his first in public) at a theater performance. Razzano bailed out, and Carlos Gardel made history by singing Mi noche triste in public, sending the audience into a frenzy standing ovation. What followed was a body of work touching on tales of love, hate, infidelity, and passional crimes depicting the fictional relationships between pimps and their whores. Record companies couldn't press enough vinyl to keep up with the demand, and many popular bards followed Contursi's suit and inundated the market with one of the most prolific productions in Tango history.

Translated Lyrics to Gardel's last tango:
TOMO Y OBLIGO: I drink, and you must drink too. Order a drink! Its no good talking about women, none of them give any reward. Don't fall in love, but if it happens, have courage! Suffer it, don't cry. A truly macho man must never cry.

Gardel in Colombia shortly before his tragic death.

Thanks to Nina Pesochinsky passing the word about today’s snow in Buenos Aires and and the legend of the birth of the next Gardel.

The Tango Vals Poetry of Tete Pedro Rusconi, or, If You Can't Tango, You Can Always IDanceTango.com

Saturday, 5:30 p.m.

Listening for music, I walk across Cheeseman Park to the pavilion.

A Tango Coloradoan has organized an unorganized, unofficial, spur-of-the-moment weekly milonga there.

There is no music today. Lots of people dotting the steps and the patio between pavilion and fountain, but no music.

Instead, there seems to be shouting.

???

Tango Colorado is a contentious bunch on the listserv, but we keep it civil in person.

The sign explains it: Denver Poetry Day. This is a reading. Poets with mikes.

The man who is haranguing the crowd looks familiar. He reads downstairs at the Merc on Friday nights, at the same time the milonga is going on in the ballroom upstairs.

I recognize him because, when I need a break from the milonga, I slip down the stairs and sneak into the poetry reading.

Once, a woman read a beautiful poem about vines. She prefaced it by saying that after a long struggle she had come to terms with aging. She was 26.

Another time, I arrived just in time to hear a blind woman at the podium shout the f-word over and over to much applause. I assume that was her punch line. I sure hope so.

Most Fridays you'll find this guy who is now yelling at the mike. He hates the government, he hates his life. I imagine he hates the bourgeoisie who while away their lives dancing while the world goes down in flames. He would like us to do something while he goes back to his desk and his coffee and scribbles more thoughts to yell at the mike.

I don't mock all lousy poets, just the arrogant ones. As arrogant as they are, I can match it. After all, there is something important at stake here, something as important as the world going down in flames: the degradation of art.

Poetry is about the tension between clarity and ambiguity. The poet can say nothing directly but must imply everything through imagery or indirection. The poet's intent must be clear and yet open to interpretation.

A poem is an invitation. The poet choreographs it, then invites the reader to coax out the meaning. Great poets give the readers plenty of room to play; great poems are unfinished until the reader completes them.

Yes, it is tango.

This guy yelling at the mike mistakes vehemence for meaning. His poetry is akin to a dance I once had with a guy I call Mean Mike II.

But I digress.

The harangue is not nearly over. These poets are not budging. It is nearly 6 p.m. The spur-of-the-moment milonga is off. I saunter back to my apartment.

It is too hot to stay outside, and inside there is nothing to do but look at the big box of folders I have brought home from work. It is too hot to play in the kitchen, too late to take a nap. Disappointment is making me restless. Cranky. I need a touch of tango. There is nothing to do here … nothing to do …

… but check out the video of the day at IDanceTango.com. Tete Pedro Rusconi, poet of the dance floor.

Ahhh.

Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part 3: What I Learned

TangoGnostics. Woo-woo walking. In the space of two songs, I have walked 20 years.

What did you learn? David asks.

I was surprised to learn my walk changed with every companion. When I discovered this, I assumed it was all about mechanics, matching my gait to my friend's.

Wrong.

It’s more woo-woo than that.

If you take what I am about to say seriously, then you will want to be conscious of your choices when you dance with me. You can be an erased slate, deliberately blank. Or a con man, sure of your ability to outsmart me. Or an illusionist, secure behind the façade you create with your sleight of hand. Or a daredevil, taunting the edge.

Me too. Every time I am asked to dance, I have to choose what I will be: blank slate, con man, illusionist, daredevil…

…or puppet?

Better to laugh it off, really. Better we should run for our lives.

Because being a puppet is not what it seems. There’s a little woo-woo in it. A little Stephen King.

Your puppet is about to mess with your head.

When I connect with you, I am not reading your body language. I am reading your interior stories, the ones you tell about you. Those that you keep private, that you can’t help but tell when you dance.

I am about to invade your private story. For as long as we dance, I live there.

I am your puppet, your doll.

If your interior world is a dollhouse, I am the doll you move around to make your story unfold. You do not move me about by your will, though it seems that you do. Rather, you move me by your aspirations and dreams, intention and longing--that is, your story.

I do not come to the dance to tell my own story. I come to be a character in yours.

...

You invite me for a milonga to create fancy footwork. This is your will. I accommodate by moving my feet thus. In the first dance of the tonda, we accomplish the goal.

Perhaps that's as far as we take it. Good enough.

Or perhaps…

… you open the door to your dollhouse. Connecting here, it becomes clear that your will to create fancy footwork is only external expression. You aspire to make me smile, you long to play. Your story is not fancy-dancer; it is celebration. That is the interior story; that is the story I share with you. I become a reveler, too. We have the dance of the night!

Or this:

You invite me for a vals, for the pleasure of flowing with the music. Lovely.

Then you open the doorway. Now I see your story. You aspire to be Fred Astaire; I become your Ginger Rogers. You long to play the dashing, romantic Prince Charming; I soften into your Cinderella. Wickedly gleeful, you are the rake; baby, I’m your coquette.


This is not entirely woo-woo, or esoteric, as David would say. I'm not really invading your head. I'm only listening to you.

You are the one who opens the doorway. You tell me your story, you reveal your longing and dreams by the way you hold yourself, the way you hold me, the way you move and breathe.

Or you refuse. You are a blank slate, a con man, an illusionist.

It’s call and response. If you don’t call, I don’t respond.

That’s fine. We don't need to connect at that level to dance well together. We can mesh steps, move our way through the music with style. Every dance can’t be the dance of the night.

That’s what I learned by walking the tango labyrinth.

But now, after hours of musing, this becomes clear:

If half-truths are untruths, all this is a lie.

Three and a Half Hours to Tango

Tango class ended at 9 last night.

Since 4:45 a.m. I have been eyeing my shoes.

It is 1 p.m. now. Class at 4:30.

Hurry up, clock!

Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part 2: What I Noticed

What did you notice? David asks.

We have just walked around the studio naturally, as if with a friend. I have walked with a plethora of friends, all in my head.

I noticed this:

Michigan has a long, fast stride. It is a struggle to keep up with him in real life. In these heels I can’t do it. Intent on what lies ahead, he is soon out of sight. The worm moves at a comfortable pace.

I love Michigan, but apparently I find it easier to connect with a worm.

Hmmm.

Let’s not lose focus.

MKK is an unsuitable partner, made unsuitable by circumstance. Friends from work are unsuitable as well. Where roles and the terms of engagement are wholly artificial—but are nevertheless the ruling constructs of a pseudo-social environment--a change in context is insufficient to produce the conditions conducive to dancing.

i.e., you can’t connect with a partner who is not really there

i.e., it takes two to tango.

With Mary Alice, we are two. I am attentive, wholly engaged.

With Barbara, we were one.

That's what I noticed.

So, David wants to know, What did you learn?

Walking the Tango Labyrinth, Part I: A Lovely Walk with My Dead Friend Barbara

David Hodgson is teaching TangoGnostics. With a name like that, you have to expect a little woo-woo.

In this case, woo-woo walking.

It’s all about the energy, David says. Tapping into the life force, being the conduit. Making that your tango.

He puts on some music. Here are the rules: No stylized steps, no landing on the beat. “Walk naturally,” he urges, “as if you were walking with a friend.”

In four-inch heels.

Glenlivet is hugging the walls, the corners. Even walking naturally, he is making the most of the line of dance. He is behind me, he passes me. We are not walking together, and yet I am attuned to the relation of space between us.

I walk with my eyes downcast. I often walk like this. Does it look shy? It is not. I am shutting out distractions, going inside my head. Daydreaming. Also keeping an eye on the never-dependable earth. Something unusual could happen.

A few minutes ago, the sole of Glenlivet’s shoe found gum on the floor.

Walking naturally, as if with …

… Michigan. We are striding uphill in Charlevoix. It is late summer, early morning. We are going to a café that brags “Hemingway Never Ate Here.” Apparently, he ate everywhere else in town.

Today we are driving to Whitefish Point on Lake Superior, where the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwrecked. Later, we will get lost in the forest, looking for the Two-Heart Campground, which must relate to Hemingway’s story “The Big Two-Hearted River.” We left before sunrise, we won’t be back home until 4 a.m. tomorrow.

Later this morning we will pass a huge wooden sign on a weedy hillside. “Good luck from us!” it proclaims. How cool is that?! The people of Trout Lake, Michigan, love us so much that they pooled their money to wish us good luck! I take this extremely personally. Michigan stops. I scramble up the hillside, pose beside the sign. The photo hangs beside my desk. It heartens me, even when I don’t need heartening.

This afternoon, Michigan will send me away so he can nap on the cold, windy beach. I will hike the waterline to see what’s around the next bend, discover a fat, green worm leaving its trail in the sand.

I sidle up to my friend MKK, who is walking alone. Her husband has a serious cancer. Distracted, she is not interested in this game.

Friends from work? Never will do. Work is a relentless half-sprint, power walking. I come to tango to stop it.

Mary Alice graciously accepts my invitation to stroll. Walking with her is a study in be-here-now. She is nearly sixty, a large, elfin woman with one brand-new hip and a bum one. She walks with a cane, and she graciously accepts all the help she doesn’t need.

In the manner of Jane Austen’s grand dames, we take a few turns around the floor. At this pace, we are not ruled by momentum, we do not take the inevitability of the next step for granted.

Often when people walk, we multitask. We note our surroundings, the people sharing our space, scents, voices, music, traffic. However lightly these things register, however remote on the periphery of our attention, they siphon tiny sips from the attention we direct to our companion.

Mary Alice considers each step; she puts every foot down with care. I sense her consideration, her placement. I do not see the room, I have lost track of Glenlivet. I am not walking-as-walking; I am moving with Mary Alice. I am fully absorbed; my every move mirrors hers.

Mary Alice admires my shoes. So do I. Comme il Faut! We watch them move along, the long legs, the high arch. Drawing on the strand of our shared energy, Mary Alice takes as her own those shoes, those feet, those legs. She is 20 years old again, lithe and graceful as ever. She offers each step as a gift to the cane and the floor. Appropriating my shoes, feet, legs, she is again the girl her daddy called Twinkle Toes. This is what it means to connect.

Mary Alice stops to rest. I walk on alone.

All my life, more than anything else, walking in solitude feeds my soul. The air as it parts is a caress; muscles and tendons cuddle and press as legs swing, weight shifts, joints flex. The subtle contrabody motion--twist of torso as arms swing opposite legs--settles my stomach. The rocking motion, the slow flow of scenery, quiet my thoughts.

Even in four-inch heels.

I am walking as naturally as the shoes will allow. Built to cant the woman’s center of gravity quite forward, they make every step uncertain. They shorten my stride, put my weight too far forward for a natural step. To accommodate the shoe, I go loose in the joints. My legs break free of the habit of walking, swing lazily to land where they will.

With every step, I feel the interior cuddle. My joints go so loose they fall apart. I am tender at the bone.

I’m pretty sure that I look ridiculous, swinging along with the mincing, swaggering saunter of an East Colfax hooker. Suddenly I am aware of Glenlivet again. Yikes!

Later, as we are dancing, I will project a pretty picture, a gift for my partner. For now, I set him firmly aside. I mean to enjoy this moment as an ostrich.

Oblivious to my surroundings, I render myself invisible. There is only me, and for a change I am not in my head, I am buried deep in my body: one heart, dancing.

Now a vision of Barbara rises. It is not real; Barbara never looked back, even when she was alive. Why would she now?

This vision is drawn from a photo. Barbara and I are walking along the Potomac. She is barefoot, carrying her boots. The grass is bright green, the shade deep. We are small in the distance. You can’t see our features or any details. You see only this: two girls absorbed in their own little world, lost to the world at large.

My mother is holding the camera. When she is not annoyed or threatened or worried that we are becoming lesbians, she treasures that Barbara and I have found a home in one another. She snaps this photo with love.

It is a gift my parents have given me, a few hours in DC with Barbara. They picked me up from school in New York, drove down the coast. They have an agenda; they would like to see Gettysburg. I will gladly give them their half-day there. They are giving me a half-day with Barbara.

Our time is up now. I am walking back into real life.

How did that go? David asks. How did it feel?