Tuesday, May 29, 2007

My Top 10 Memorial Day Festival Highlights

1
Most Beautiful Dance: David Hodgson and partner floating like swans on a pond to Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the alternative milonga.

2
Most Breathtaking Move: After a dazzling display of footwork, Julio and Corina end in a simple, straightforward embrace. When Corina’s foot comes down gentle and precise on the music’s last note, the dance is made perfect and whole.

3
Coolest Move: Stan’s knee-knocking to the beat. I’ve had leads play with my feet, my hips, but never my knees!

4
Favorite Visiting Lead: Jane. Scoping out prospective leads during the opening night milonga, I noticed that the followers who weren’t shy about connecting with a woman had fantastic dances with Jane. With courtly attentiveness, she invites the follower to join, give-and-take, in creating the dance. She encouraged me to riff on the steps she led, then picked up on my steps to create the next set. If I were a man, I would learn to follow just for the pleasure of dancing with Jane.

5
Best Tango Trance: At the alternative milonga, a song deep and rich with cello and viola, swelling and receding, melodic. Relaxing in a chair along the back wall, I am transported. It is lovely to enter a trance while dancing, but there is rare magic in a musical trance.

6
Best Shoes: Judith’s with the flirty bows. From Gaia’s new stash at The Tango House?

7
Most Quintessential Gym Class Moment: In class with Julio and Corina, gender balance is seriously off. You’ll have to be assertive about taking a man when we say “change partners,” Nina warns the unpartnered women. I am not assertive enough. I am not alone. Julio notices. Stops the music. “No one dances until these two women have partners!” he announces. The other woman is snapped up. I go as red as my shirt. Julio points: “No music until that woman has a partner!” he insists. Oh, throw a dodgeball. Make me climb a rope.

8
Most Gracious Apology: Yes, damn it, Tom, you are right. Gender balance matters. In classes, anyway. I’ll give you that much. I’m still standing firm on milongas.

9
Coolest Festival Moment: From an elevated perch in the Cheeseman Park Pavilion, a bird’s eye view of many dancers, many dances, all part of one larger whole. Tom calls it Tango Transcendence, his reason and reward for organizing this event.

10
Best of the Fest: Festival organizer Tom Stermitz being showered with well-deserved kudos for creating this great big gift year after year.


Personal Bests from the Memorial Day Festival

For a girl who couldn’t get her hands on a festival pass, I didn’t do too badly. I cobbled together my own festival from classes and privates and serendipity and the Tango Colorado milongas and the one festival milonga that doesn’t draw the full crowd.

My personal highlights:

Favorite Foodie Moment: Following Ellen’s instructions I bring massive amounts of chocolate to the potluck, just in time for the sweet-treat rush. Soon, only the emergency rations are left. A small crowd gathers as I slather frosting on graham crackers. They wrinkle their noses, they laugh, they remember their childhoods, they chow down.

Best Eavesdropping Moment: Several days after a botched private lesson with Corina, immediately after the last class of the festival, which is particularly tough, I overhear Corina saying, She moves nicely, doesn’t she? I turn to see whom she is talking about. It is me! Wow!

The Best Revenge: Dancing often, dancing well. I wear my bad-girl outfit to the alternative milonga and dance nearly nonstop.

Best Day-After Remedy: Cocooning. I feel like I’ve gone on a bender. Dancing nearly nonstop is not my style. I am going to make myself scarce for a couple of nights.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Tango Trance Brownies

Ellen tells me she needs anything chocolate for the festival potluck. No problem. I have just what she needs:


Tango Trance Brownies


Equipment

A stainless steel bowl. Reflecting your shining face, curved to fit.

One small, square pan. A meditation on the limits of experience.

You, the mirror, the vessel.


Soft Butter

This is how butter is made:

A young girl sits in the cool of a deep, shaded porch. Downy seeds drift on sunlit air.

She lifts the churn handle, drops it, lifts it again. Air runs a finger up her arm’s milky flesh. Her thoughts drift to he who will touch her like that, who will awaken her from childhood’s trance. She sighs.

The air caresses her throat, slips down her unbuttoned bodice. She sighs again, deeply, lifts and drops the churn handle.

Respect the girl and her longing. Never buy butter in blocks, hard-pressed, metal-cut, near-frozen. Buy hand-formed lumps cooled in water.

This is how to soften butter:

Take it in your hands. Knead it gently, spreading it thin, opening it to the air. Fold it back on itself, doubling and redoubling, until it grows pliant.


Sugar

In paradise, woody stalks leap from rocky ground. Their thick, dark leaves gleam in the sun and clap at the rain. As much sun, as much rain, as much wind as the sky can give, the cane takes and begs for more.

In the fall, men set fires and the cane swallows them whole. In the ashes machetes slash, women pile and cart. Only then does the cane weep. In the crusher it weeps the sweetest tears of all.

Fill a cup with sugar and lift it high. Pour a slow, sparkling cascade. Hear its last laugh rasp.

The cane never loses its joy. Wet your finger, touch a single crystal, carry it to the tip of your tongue.

See?


Eggs

Two eggs out of round. Self-contained, impervious, asynchronous. Which came first: the egg or the cat?

Strike each egg with the blade of a knife. Let it fall gently. Shape-shifter, it conforms to the contours it finds.

Don’t break the yolk, or a farmer’s daughter will die. She’s there in the chicken house, too.


Chocolate

Beware. Bad chocolate is made by witches who foul it with wax to make it do tricks.

Pure chocolate has no guile. Pure chocolate is tender and willing.

Take it in the cup of your hands. Bring it close to your lips, as if to whisper. Inhale deeply. Let it amplify your desire. Open your mouth as you would for a kiss. Sigh.

There is danger in chocolate, as in a lover’s embrace: You must disengage or be lost.


Blend

In the bowl now: your curving face, sugar rough as whiskers, the lip-like pliancy of butter. Primordial goo, the secret of life. The dark, bitter oil of dreams. Water, air, and fire. Desire and will.

Plunge in your hands. Be firm about this. Now the yolks must break under your thumbs. Palpate. Coax the butter to sugar, the sugar to egg, the egg to chocolate. This will take you a good long time.

Accept nothing less than this: that each loses itself in the other.


Flour, Soda, and Salt

Flour is the stuff of which gravity is made. It is grown by men who plant their feet. Dust-light it binds us, roots us to earth. You could drown a cat with a sack of flour.

Salt is the darling of temperance. Soda makes light, even of dreams.

No one dreams of flour. No one dreams of soda or salt.

Dip your dream-filled hands into the flour. Take away as little as you can. Take soda and salt, grain by grain. Knead them in. They won’t go gladly.

Weep.


Bake
Heat overcomes the too, too solid.

Butter melts flour’s resistance.

Chocolate clings and soaks.

Soda and salt give way to temptation.

Egg’s primordial goo creates something new.

In heat, all melt, all resolve into a cosmic fudge dew.


Note to Tango Sisters Who Find Themselves Down in the Dumps After a Private Lesson with a Real-Life BA Superstar Teacher

Remember: You do suck! But you will get better.

Meanwhile: Canaro, your shoes, and a clean, lovely floor.


***

The Walking Cure

Yes, it is me. I am the one in tears. Good grief.

There is a question nagging me here: Why does it matter so much?

One day I will explore that answer. Not today. Not today, when it does matter so much. I am a little afraid of what I might find if I go into that cave.

A deep psychic wound from past life karma inner child first grade nun inner critic jungianfreudian slip and fall from grace trip.

A tendency to blow things out of proportion, perhaps, just a bit.

Competitiveness.

Impatience.

Anger.

Ego.

Foolishness.

There is only one way out of this black hole.

Pam Houston describes her writing process as spelunking. A fan asked how she goes so far into the deep dark Cave of Psychic Pain without getting lost and stranded.

Craft, she said. Craft is the lifeline you follow back out.

Put on the music, put on the shoes. Listen for Corina’s voice. Do it!


I Am Walking Around with My Hands on My Ass

I am walking around with my hands on my ass.

This is Corina de la Rosa’s doing.

In walking, my downfall is falling into the back step.

We stand facing a wall, one foot behind ready to step. Corina says, Put your weight on your back foot. Don’t move your chest.

I run a quick inventory. No chest, hence no shoulders.

I go for ribs. She shakes her head.

I skip to the other end of my body, step back.

“Your chest moved,” she points out. I look down. Sure enough!

I stare at the wall. Corina waits. A wonderful thing in a teacher.

Next up in the inventory is knees. I straighten my front leg. Hmm…doesn’t feel right.

Up to the next joint. Push back my hips. Look down. Chest is still there! Look to Corina.

Whoo-hoo!

At home, I show my new trick to The Man on the Wall. Then I work it into Eleven Perfect Steps. At every other step I lose it.

Hence, the placement of hands.

The Man on the Wall looks amused.

How the Professionals Learn

I am invited to observe an advanced/professional class. I am here to spy on the pros, to learn how to learn. Here’s how the professionals learn:

Lightly, with laughter. They work hard. They have fun.

PS: They don’t talk when the teacher is talking.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Nina gives me permission to watch the Julio and Corina’s professional class. Corina has also given her blessing.

For a week I have been looking forward to this.

Now, half a day to go, I am assailed with doubt.

What if the students, the professionals in the class, don’t want anyone watching? It would be OK if they asked me to leave. It would not be OK if they didn’t ask, but resented my presence.

What if they think this is precious? I’m too old to be a groupie. I’m too shy to pull it off with élan. In ballet school, students are often invited to watch master classes. But as I am so often reminded, tango and ballet don’t mix.

Yes, I am assailed. But I am going. Wild horses couldn’t hold me back. I long ago learned to harness the wild horses of shyness. They stamp and bolt, but in the end I am stronger than they are.

I want to see how professionals learn. How they listen, how they practice. I can take classes any time to learn new steps; tonight I intend to learn how to learn.

***

I do not wish the professionals to think I have the nerve to participate in their class. As if they would care. They all have their own partners. Still. I don’t wish to attract looks of askance.

The solution: dress not to dance. This is a handy trick. If you go to milongas unsuitably dressed, you can sit and watch undisturbed. Jeans, a sweater, clunky shoes—that’s the ticket.

At the last minute I change into a nice top. There is a milonga after the class. I am too dispirited from my private lesson this morning to even consider attending. But I know the effect tango can have on the spirits. Best to take the shoes, too.

I plan to arrive a half hour late. Class will be in session. I can slip in unnoticed.

Ha! This is tango-time. Class has not yet begun. I find a place out of the way but with a good view.

Julio calls the class together.

Psst! Nina says from her place in the circle of students. Get in here and dance!

“No partner,” I mouth.

She points to Gino, who is taking registration.

I have danced with Gino before. A joy and a pleasure. In respect of his skill, I offer him a chance to back out. He refuses. “Get your shoes,” he says. “I will torture you!”

My mood turns on a dime. In a flash, I am shod.

Torture shmorture! This is Adventure!

And here’s a gift: Here in this class, Corina is repeating corrections she gave me this morning! Tips on posture, on how to step around your partner.

All night long, Gino teases and beguiles and helps me get better. As he works on the step, I concentrate on being the best damn follower on the planet.

I hear Corina’s voice from this morning. I follow Gino’s lead and Corina’s voice at the same time. I feel like Dorothy being prepped to meet the Wizard of Oz, a dozen stylists working all at once. Wow!

When Gino has the step, he helps me work on technique. He tells me things I have heard 100 times before, but in the context of the moment, in his repeated demonstrations, it clicks.

Something bigger clicks, too. When I left my private lesson with Corina this morning, I had only one question to ask her. I didn’t ask because I was afraid of the answer.

The question was this: Are there some people who just never get it? Are somehow intrinsically wanting, inept in the tango?

Editors trim sentences. Trim the last phrase from the last question, and the truth of what matters emerges.

Isn’t that interesting? And existential. And oh, so typical of women.

I am not looking for life answers. I am looking to dance. So I do. Not with the grace and élan of the pros, but still, I can keep up. I can understand the instruction and follow. I am not a liability to my partner, Gino. Not much.

The Inuit, they say, have 100 words for the various qualities of snow. English has only one word for love. Now it has one more: I tango-love Gino. I tango-love Nina.

In the space of one minute (Get in here and dance! Get your shoes.), two kind-hearted people gave me back the dance. And maybe a little bit more. Something has clicked. I feel it, but I am not sure what it is. I don’t care to pursue it right now.

Tonight, I am dancing again.



Wings, I Have Wings!

Stop the presses! OHD has finally, finally, finally found her wings!

Who can say how these things unfold?

Since last fall, nearly every teacher—Nina and Grisha and Roberta and Chas and Gaia and Tom and Nina and Nina and Nina—has been hammering away at this aspect of the embrace.

Raise your wings, Nina says.
Tuck in your ribs, Chas says.
Put your hands on me here, Nina says, then raises her wings.
You’re falling away from me, Roberta says, being the lead.
Like this, Gaia says, being the girl so I can feel it on her.
Here, here, Nina says, palming the muscles.
Give me your back, Grisha says, showing me the curve of his arm.
Give me your back, Roberta says, showing me the curve of her arm.
Engage, Nina says, because she knows I have that term from ballet.
Tom catches my eye as I dance by, rolls his shoulders.
Let me feel it! Nina commands.
I’ve lost the connection, Roberta says again and again.
Send your arms away from your body, Nina says.
Like this, Grisha says again and again.
Where are your wings? Nina demands.

I admire their single-minded dedication. I match it. I tuck, I lift, I roll, I hunch, I grip. I do push ups, as best I can. I make myself sore. I take long, hot baths.

I learn slowly. I don’t mind this. I don’t like to feel rushed. I like the process, the piling on of meaning, the slowly sinking in, the carefully observed, consciously created, incremental advance.

At work, at the photocopier, I tuck, lift, hunch, grip. In the ladies, as I wash my hands, I turn sideways to see the effect. There is not much to see. At my desk I hunch over a keyboard. I take a break, stretch, lift my wings.

In class with Nina, in privates with Grisha, at practica and milonga, I lift my wings at the start of each dance. But when the dance ends, I discover my wings have folded up. I do not capture the moment when that happens. I don’t know how to adjust on the fly.

Five days ago, I lift my wings in a confident way for the first time. This is the result of the slow pile-up. One day, it coalesces. And then coalesces quickly.

In our Friday lesson, Grisha stops to correct me mid-dance. I am concentrating on legwork; I don’t notice my wings. He shows me the curve of his arm. Pay attention here first, he is saying.

I turn my attention to wings. Lift and lock them in place, hold the feel of that configuration of muscle foremost in my mind. Grisha moves my legs while I strive to keep my muscles in exactly that place.

If you freeze a pose for too long, you need a hot bath to thaw out. Mine lasts one hour. I miss a dinner date, am late to the Merc.

Saturday I practice with The Man on the Wall, my palms flat on his shoulders, my elbows stuck out to the sides, in a pose that engages the back.

But … it engages me wrong. When I place my arms so, it pinches my shoulder blades sharply together—the opposite effect from the one that I want! How have I not noticed before? I turn away from The Man on the Wall, continue my practice in the imaginary embrace of a three-dimensional lead.

Sunday morning, too lazy to get out of bed, I wriggle to stretch out a kink. Eeeeek! This is it! So easily something slips into place. I have been lifting my wings from their tops. Too high, too close to the surface.

As with anything heavy, you must lift from below. Find the strong base, inexorably press against the weight bearing down. It is the subtle power move. It is pushups when your arms are already tired.

Monday night, I ask Grisha for a dance. This is a first. I don’t ask for dances. But he has been urging me to. “This is a practica. I am here working, Come and find me and ask me to dance.”

Never.

But I do Monday night. There is a slow vals, slow enough I can focus, melodic enough I can move without thinking.

Time to try out my new wings. Will he notice?

We stand at the edge of the dance floor. I let my hips and legs go soft, tuck myself into Corina’s cave. Grisha encircles my back, raises his hand. No hurry. My arm encircles his shoulders, my hand cradles in his. I take a light breath … lightly lift. My wings slip into place. I hold them there as best I can, holding tight. Occasionally I feel them drooping. In the space between steps, I slip them back into place.

He says nothing about my new wings.

Tuesday I’m stuck at the Turn, waiting for Julio and Corina to dance. I am cranky and cold and starving. I have already eaten six of the free mints by the door. If Julio and Corina would hurry up and dance, I could hit a pancake house on the way home.

Finally they take to the floor. They do not give a performance. They do not enter the social dance area. They enter the area cordoned off for practice. The area is nearly deserted, and they start … well, horsing around. Beautifully and gracefully and splendidly and all that. But still, horsing around.

This is the best tango I have ever seen! They fall all over each other’s feet. They laugh and talk and keep going. Her steps are perfectly placed—you can’t imagine the precision--and easygoing. He misses a step, goes off balance. They laugh and go, laugh and go. It’s not only their dance that shines brightly; it is them.

Falling over is bad in milonga. In performance, very bad. But if you don't fall over in practice, you are playing too safe. I love that they don't feel the need to play it safe even though half the room is watching.

And Corina has a beautiful back. I don’t see wings, I see muscles. They slip and slide as her embrace moves with the dance.

Lovely! So now I have seen them and I can go. But I am waylaid. Andre has been trying the cabaceo all night, he says.

Yeah, I don’t play that, I tell him. I’d rather sit out.

If you want to practice…, he says.

I explain I am working on the wing thing. I demonstrate for him. He understands this; we have taken many classes together.

We take our first steps. Julio and Corina return to the floor, fall in behind us. I catch sight of her back. Curved and easy.

We are not halfway around the first turn of the floor when Andre draws back. “You’ve lost it!” he says. He is laughing, which makes me laugh too. Did I not say just 10 steps ago that this is the very thing I would practice?

Tell me every time I lose it, I say.

And he does.

And I notice:

I lose it every time I step out of the straightforward embrace for the cross, ocho, ocho cortado, ocho-anything, or the turn.

We round a corner. “I don’t feel you,” Andre says, jollying my back with his arm.

Julio and Corina are not watching us dance. But I pretend that they are. I hold my back just as she did, curved and easy, strong. I envision Grisha’s curved arm, Roberta’s curved arm, Andre’s arm curved around me. I give him my back.

The wings slip into place. They are not heavy, they have just the right heft.

I feel my hand strong in Andre’s, and it is not because I am pushing, it is because I am there.

We do all kinds of things that we have never done before. “I am practicing,” he says with good humor.

Every time my brain goes into my legs, I lose my wings and we stumble. Andre laughs. I laugh too. He teases me. I tease him back. We agree that it’s always his fault.

But we are seriously practicing, too. “Disconnection,” Andre whispers. I adjust. Yes! Andre says. Yes! I nod.

We go at it again, working with serious intent, our hearts light, connected.

My wings wriggle in pleasure. Then we fly.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Shoes Shoes Shoes

To: One Heart Dancing
From: The Tango House
RE: New Shoes at the Tango House

Greetings from The Tango House,

A new shipment of Comme il Faut shoes arrived today. It includes many pairs of hard to find small and large sizes. The shoe boutique will be open starting on Wednesday, May 23rd for Julio and Corina workshops. It will be open during regular events at The Tango House and by appointment.

* * * * *

To: Gaia
From: One Heart Dancing
RE: MORE shoes?

Stop tempting me! I am trying to save up to buy a house!

(I just bought a pair in April, the best The Tango House had in my size at the time. I like them and will be happy with them … unless these new shoes are truly fabulous.)

* * * * *

To: One Heart Dancing
From: Gaia
Re: More Shoes

… the shoes are just to die for. Oh my gosh they are beautiful. I'm having a hard time keeping my little fingers off of them myself. Yummy to say the least. But house saving is important and you'll feel great when your goal is accomplished, so I won't tell you any more how fabulous, utterly irresistible, sensously incredible the new shoes are. No, I won't tell you that at all! :-) Hugs, Gaia

* * * * *

To: Gaia
From: One Heart Dancing
Re: Temptation

I can resist anything except temptation.

Love,
One Heart Dancing

Monday, May 21, 2007

Lemony Snicket's Words of Wisdom

If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particulary if the thing is cats.

From Horseradish, Lemony Snicket's book of bitter truths

Saturday, May 19, 2007

The Man on the Wall and I Are Not Speaking

Saturday afternoon. Canaro is playing. I am packing. The Man on the Wall is looking on. We are not speaking. I am avoiding him, as much as I can in this small space.

He has to know what’s going on. Q has already gone into a box, nestled between Eudora and the nun who leans away in distaste. Too bad for her; for now she is pressed against Q in an embrace so close even TeacherTom would approve.

Now The Man on the Wall has no Q to lock eyes with. Now when the Man on the Wall looks down the length of the room, he sees only empty bookshelves.

He has to wonder about his own fate. I am not thinking about it. Until today that has been easy.

Things at work have been the kind of crazed that actually makes you crazy. I am house hunting. Pulpo was here. Tango is playing its usual mind games. I am practicing like a fiend. I had another private lesson with Grisha, another group class with Tom. Dueling techniques. Luiza says followers have to master them all. The festival is coming. My prettiest milonga dress, which was two sizes large at Christmas, is four sizes large right now. My mother wants to know if I’m anorexic. She grills me on how much I weigh, what I eat. I ask her if she knows a good tailor. The festival is coming. My car has developed a catastrophic oil leak. I have nowhere to live as of June 1. I cannot find a house that I like with a payment that will allow me unlimited tango. The festival is coming. And I still am 20 down on the waiting list!


The Man on the Wall has not been distracted at all.




Friday, May 18, 2007

Stumped

I am standing before The Man on the Wall. He is smiling benignly. We have been at it nearly two hours. Sometimes we dance without stopping; sometimes we take a break and go at it again.

We are taking a break now. I am stumped.

The Man on the Wall waits. If patience is a virtue, he must be a saint. A happy one. Though he’s bald. And emaciated. And frankly, his grin seems more clueless than cute right this minute.

I have not danced in three days. Tomorrow I have a private lesson. I need to get back in the game. I want to make good progress, not spend half the class working out kinks.

Tonight I have practiced walking, Eleven Perfect Steps. Front and back ochos with my hands on the shoulders of The Man on the Wall. Turns around the stick this way and that. Turns without the stick, this way and that. Ocho cortados. My balance is good enough now that I can practice exits from the cross by myself--I mean, with The Man on the Wall.

What next? The Man on the Wall has no suggestions. He’s still a rank beginner; there are not many steps he can do. And he can’t lead worth a damn.

No, I take that back. He is fine, really. No different than usual. I am only cranky because of my lesson tomorrow.

The Man on the Wall has been my practice buddy all along. Loyal and cheerful. Always willing. Always approving.

When the men at the Turn and the Merc make me feel like I cannot do one single thing right, I can always come home and dance with The Man on the Wall.

When I actually could not do one single thing right—not even stand up in these shoes—The Man on the Wall cheered me on. When I couldn’t walk a single step without falling into the sofa, his smile reminded me, “Isn’t this silly? Won’t it be great when we get it right?”

When I staggered and swore, he was steadfast. Tears of frustration never discomfited him.

When I fell in love with ochos, he was an Ironman. Tom says that women doing ochos are like Energizer bunnies; if you get them started, it’s hard to get them to stop. With The Man on the Wall, I could do ochos ’til I dropped.

When Nina and Grisha were teaching together, and they wanted to build musical awareness, they asked their students to dance free-form alone to the music. I froze in the class but found my groove with The Man on the Wall.

When I danced to Alfred Apaka, even as Tango Colorado went up in flames over alternative music, The Man on the Wall kept his mouth shut.

When I ran through dance personas like water (butterfly, badass, lesbian, queen), The Man on the Wall remained true.

When I finally brought myself to give up my ballet shoes—admit I am giving up on ballet—he looked on while I took a last, elegiac photo.

When I wore the Oriental silk bustier that Andrea made me buy, which will never see the light of the Merc or the Turn, The Man on the Wall pretended only casual interest.

When New Zealand quit tango, The Man on the Wall hung around.

I wouldn’t be in tango today if it weren’t for The Man on the Wall.

I am doing OK. After six months, I am still here. I haven’t mastered Eleven Perfect Steps, but I can do Eleven Pretty Good ones. Leads appreciate my pretty good balance. Usually, I can pivot and hang around on one foot.

A handful of men ask me to dance. One says I’ve made lots of progress. Another says he likes that we are becoming accustomed to dancing together. Glenlivet says nothing, which is A-OK, because he never criticized, either. He is the closest thing going to The Man on the Wall.

Still. Here I stand, stumped. The Man on the Wall has all good intentions, but he can’t help me now. It’s 8 p.m. There’s a practica in Boulder, but I don’t want to drive that far. I have been packing. I have had wine. I am tired.

One more time through the Di Sarli CD. Eleven Perfect Steps. Ochos. Turns this way and that. Whatever else I can manage on my own.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Coffee

Coffee
Jerry McCarthy

When we sleep, our personal darkness drains out of us
And floats upwards into the night
To replenish the spaces between the stars.

We awake hollow and empty and light
And in need of some fresh new darkness
To recharge our soul’s energy.

Coffee is the hot enlivening darkness
We pour into ourselves to put back the night
So that we, as tiny specks of dust, can shine again
Against the great cold dark matter of all that is.

Double mochaccino latte grande day
Banish our light, empty, sleepy selves away.
Amen.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

SWF(ollower) Seeks 41 Milongueros

Registration for the Memorial Day Festival is closed to women. Classes and milongas. Zip. Zilch.

I am the 41st follower on the waiting list. Tom says I might get in, if more men sign up.

I never register early. Once my stomach realizes it is committed to a new tango adventure, it’s clear liquids for me. Two days before the Pulpo workshop I registered. By the time the workshop ended, I thought I would faint.

But missing the festival is unthinkable. There is something at stake!

I had intended to give my new black vest—a cropped, zippered, nylon-lycra-and-satin parody of a biker’s vest--its first outing at the alternative milonga during the festival.

Along with an earring made from the blade of a dismantled Swiss Army knife (just one, in the left ear) and stilettos that look like black leather bikinis for the feet.

And, if the stars and planets aligned with the wine, I was going to go very blonde.

Hmm….the costume demands to be worn…

… when one door shuts, cut a hole in the wall…

Eureka!

If I am shut out of the festival, I will have to take my costume to the Hog Heaven Biker’s Ball this summer in Sturgis.

OR …?

Register now for the Labor Day festival.

OR ... ?

Recruit 41 men by next week. Sign up here.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Great Moments in Tango Teaching 2: Pulpo

Friday, May 11

The final approach to the Memorial Day festival begins with a special guest teacher:

El Pulpo. In English, The Octopus.

Everyone talks about his fancy-leg style. Ganchos, sacadas, paradas, things he makes up.

Partners wrap their legs around one another, pretzel and pivot this way and that. Occasionally they take a step. Much of the time they stand on one foot, messing around with their intertwined legs.

Very tricky.

Very intricate.

Very dependent on balance.

One false move and we all fall down.

Of course I’m a wreck. I am not eating. Or talking. Or breathing, really. Just waiting. Also starving. At precisely the time I sent in my (very late) registration, the stomach closed for business.

By some mischance, I arrive at The Merc early. The hosts, Nick and Tara, are here. There are CDs for sale, DVDs, shoes. Flyers for the workshops here, more flyers for workshops in Argentina. Shoes. Beautiful men’s shoes with unusual stylings.

A man sits with the shoes. He is not selling, only sitting. He is Pulpo. We exchange an unsmiling look, and here’s the first surprise: He is quiet. Not inscrutable, simply quiet.

The Potomac River is like this; you have to toss a twig in to see that the water is moving. Then you see it is not merely the surface but the whole huge mass that is flowing. The surface does not reflect what lies underneath. No eddies, no confusion of waters. This is Pulpo at rest.

What will this Pulpo expect? In a grainy publicity photo on the flyer for this class, his hair is spiky and he is contorting with a woman who appears to be levitating.

What will this Pulpo expect? How much and how fast? I drive myself crazy with questions. His legwork is so complicated, how can anyone master it?

When Javier came, he expected us to know sacadas; that’s where he started. Will this Pulpo expect us to already know ganchos? I have done only a clumsy few with Grisha and The Man on the Wall.

I am not ready for this. I should never have listened to what Nina said about taking hard classes. I should work at my own skill level. I don’t need to stay. There is always The Man on the Wall.

I walk out

but can’t go.

Pulpo has a personal vision, a unique take on the thing that he loves. This exploration of legwork is not some cheap trick. He speaks of it analytically; he develops it with talent and inventiveness and rigor. What is that but genius?

How often do you get to spend time with genius in its own element?

I have spent time in rooms with Joyce Carol Oates, William Sytron, John Barth. In every case they were out of their element. A writer’s genius is nothing to see: they sit at a keyboard, they type. When they read their work, they are two, three, four times removed from their genius, as light from the sun bounces off the moon, filters through curtains, strikes a mirror and falls into your eye.

At midnight Pulpo will perform. He will be in his element then. Meanwhile, we have class.


Pulpo is as quiet in his teaching as in his sitting by shoes. He has economy of movement. He gestures a bit, his voice rises and falls. Luiza is beautiful, with expressive eyebrows, a musical voice and hands that dance to her words.

Luiza translates for Pulpo. He looks students in the eye while he is speaking and while Luiza translates for him. It is as if he were speaking in her language, her voice.

Here’s the second surprise: Pulpo is in his element as a teacher, too.


He encourages us to learn both lead and follow. We learn this standing still, facing one another, a simple exercise.

Shortly after we begin, my partner pronounces this exercise stupid and wanders away. Pulpo, observant, leads me to another lone woman.

I hold out my hands before me. My partner places her hands in mine. When I move my hands to the left, she shifts to that side … to the right, she shifts again. I move one hand forward, so goes her foot. Here, there, back again, her foot follows. We go for a cross front and back, some other thing Pulpo has asked us to try.

I want her to collect but she won’t. I don’t want to make her feel in the wrong, but I need to know why. I ask, “What signal do you need from me to tell you to place your feet side by side?”

She is a beginner. She doesn’t know to collect. I explain what it means; she suggests the signal that will work best for her. We try again. As I place our hands side by side, she collects.

Wow!

I made that happen?

!

I move my hand, bring it back. Look, she did it again! And look, yet again! As I move, so does she. This is magic!

Nina tells the men, “She is your puppet!” Luiza says the same thing.

They are wrong!

With a puppet the limbs dance, but there’s nobody home.

This is much better: My partner is sentient. She is right here. So am I. She is not merely waiting for me to pull her strings; I am not merely pulling her strings.

She is paying attention to me. I am paying attention to her. With my hands I whisper, with her feet she whispers back. We are intent on our whispers.

I am being gentle and slow, taking care not to hurt her by holding too tight, not to startle by moving too fast. I hold her like a big, crystal bowl, not because Nina once said so, but because she is a person who trusts me, and that is a fragile and beautiful thing.

Tamora Pierce has written a series of books in which teens under duress can spin their energies together into magic. From each teen comes a bright thread of light; when the threads comingle, there is magic.

This is magic!

Every move she makes is a miracle, a saying of yes.

No wonder men love this dance!

I have heard the expression “every step is led” so often it has lost all its meaning. It never had much. Of course steps are led. The lead is the boss of me. This is tango. I am the pretty, passive puppet. The girl.

Now, playing the lead under the quiet and observant presence of Pulpo, I understand something new:

There are no puppets here, no puppetmasters. Seeking connection is not the same thing as awaiting instruction. It is not the same as being tensed for action, ready for flight.

I don’t know what more it is, or I don’t know how to say it. But I feel it.

I feel it as a lead, in goodly intent toward my partner.

I feel it as a follower, in respect for my partner.

These are the elements missing from puppetry: kindness, respect. The generous touch.

The class goes on. Pulpo extends our skills in a well-planned progression of baby steps, one after another after another and another. They pile up.

By Saturday afternoon we have ganchos. When the last workshop ends Monday night, we are all officially pulped!

Muchas gracias, Pulpo. Muchas gracias, Luiza.


Friday, May 11, 2007

The Hot New Tango Fashion Accessory. Get one of these before the Memorial Day Festival

Nora Ephron feels bad about her neck.

I feel bad about my collarbones.

They stick out.

Way out.

My little brother used to reach in and close his fingers around them. Ow!

Ugly bones. Or so I thought until yesterday…

…when The New York Times style section pronounced “this season’s hot accessory: a prominent clavicle.”

Ha!

The well-chiseled clavicle is in,” NYT says.

“Toned shoppers who want to show off their self-discipline in the face of dessert are choosing dresses with a low but not plunging neckline, a look that is transforming the area above the breasts, into an unlikely new subject for women to obsess over….



“Why the new emphasis on a body part most women—and more men—have paid little attention to in the past?" NYT asked.



“Showing off your clavicle is the opposite of showing your thong,” said Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.

Yikes!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Monday, May 7, 2007

To Avoid Wear and Tear on the Smoke Alarm

Note to Multitasking Self with Gas Stove:

If you turn on the burner to melt butter in the sauté pan so you can fry an egg, then, before you turn away to practice cool new tango moves, be sure you’ve turned on the burner under the pan and not the one under the carton of eggs.

Private Lesson with Grisha, Aftermath, riffing on wings

Find a way to engage my wings without going light. Stream of consciousness, calling up images and metaphors.

This morning, commuting to work, I stopped at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Speer. A pigeon was walking, looking for crumbs. He kept lifting his wings, wriggling them, laying them down. He couldn’t get them comfortably settled.

Birds with broken wings. They drag heavily. Those birds are doomed. Do they know it? I think that they must. If they don’t conceive of death exactly, they must know that next time a predator strikes, they’re not going to make a quick getaway.

Big wings. Turkey wings, huge and meaty. Despite their huge wings, turkeys can’t fly. Canada geese. The bones of their wings click as they shove air.

The wings of Michaelangelo's angels. Beefy types, whose wings look to weigh twice as much as their bodies. Every feather looks weighty. When I lift those heavy, heavy wings, I get lighter. They are lifting me up onto my toes.

Heavy. Think heavy.

Airplane wings. In theater, an area off-stage, whence dancers come and go. The wings of buildings. The Denver Art Museum’s new wing. Soaring, angular, bulky and light.

Think wings that aren’t light. Wings that don’t soar. That don’t lift you up. Wings that are heavy. Dragging. The wings of angels banished from paradise. Broken.

That guy who flew into the sun with his wings made of wax. What was his name? What was his story? I believe he burned and crashed.

Back to my own culture’s myths. Jesus pinned like a butterfly to the cross, emaciated arms like wings outstretched. Sagging, chest collapsing, suffocating. Lifting himself, leverage against the nails in his hands, for sips of air. Crying out yet unable (or unwilling?) to make the quick getaway.

Yikes! Those wings aren’t for me.

DJ Dave says tango is mournful, even when it sounds peppy. Julie Taylor describes the bitter melancholy that informs the staid milangeuro. They are all banished angels. Yet they dance. They have wings.

A banished angel dragging beautiful, broken wings. Yoked to those wings as an ox at the plow, leaning forward to pull hard, even and steady against the crush of history. Wings as they drag gash furrows in the earth, raising blood.

Argentina.

My First Private Lesson, Part 4: Gancho!

I would never do a gancho. They look cheesy. And lethal. In the wrong hands (that is, on the wrong feet), stilettos could cripple a man.

I am the wrong feet.

I have no spatial awareness, no ability to calibrate expenditure of energy to desired effect.

Once I meant to kick a girl lightly with my knee, and she ended up in the nurse’s office.

Do you want to gancho with me?

Grisha is fearless.

He throws one in without warning. He explains the technique. We try a few more.

I am working very hard on not sending him to the nurse’s office.

He senses my hesitation and stops.

“I’m afraid I’m going to kick you in the butt!” I say. “Sorry,” I add. (One does not say butt in polite company.)

Grisha looks puzzled. “My butt is not there,” he replies.

I think I should know. I’m the one wrapping my leg around his. But I don’t correct him. I only make a face.

We move on.

At home, I am practicing. I decide to try a gancho on The Man on the Wall. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll learn to patch drywall.

We stand in an open embrace, allowing ourselves plenty of room.

Ready? I ask.

The Man on the Wall smiles trustingly. Fool.

I step, feel the pressure of Grisha’s thigh against mine. Shift my weight—gancho!

I freeze.

This is how I get a sense of where things are in the world. I freeze. I examine. I take my time. I have been known to get out a ruler and measure.

I examine my leg as it hangs in the air.

Ah. Now I see why Grisha said his butt is not in danger of my heel.

The foot-bone is connected to the ankle-bone.

Not the knee-bone.

Gancho-men, rest assured. Your butts are safe from my heels.

(But you might want to keep an eye on my knees.)

Saturday, May 5, 2007

My First Private Lesson, Part 3

We dance a bit. Then Grisha pulls the chair out from under me.

“You’re off balance,” he says.

I thought I was pretty OK. Mostly.

“… because you’re falling backward,” he finishes.

I did not feel that at all! As he speaks, I review our dance in my head. Certainly not!

“…wings..” he is saying.

Ah. The wing thing.

Since my first follower’s class, Nina has been hammering away at my wings.

I have wings. I picked them up in Hawaii.



**************************************

Years ago, Michigan went to Hawaii. He wrote: This place is great! Come and see! I went. Soon, an emergency called him away. Soon my money ran out. I ate fruit hanging from the trees, littering the roadsides.

The sunlight was so thick with honey you could eat it. And it would sustain you.

Every day was once in a lifetime, thick with myth and jungle, volcanoes blowing and steaming, the whole cosmic ocean allowing to exist for this moment, this tiny, tiny island.

I failed to notice I was starving.

When I got home, I was a skeleton. Every time she walked by me, my grandmother would rub my shoulder blades.

“Angel wings,” she’d say.

She was senile, but she understood. I had been to paradise. I was a banished angel.

When I am old and lying on my back in a nursing home, staring at the ceiling, I will remember the taste of rose-apples found by the side of the road and will be transported to heaven.


So I have these wings. Skin and bone, souvenirs of the time I wasn’t quite of this world.

“…like this. Yes,” Grisha says, adjusting my arms.

Yes. I am lifting my wings.

My First Private Tango Lesson, Parts 1 and 2

My First Private Tango Lesson, Part 1

I start by telling Grisha I have no balance.

“I have never noticed that,” he says.

I am sitting on a barstool just off his living room/studio, putting on my tango shoes. I lean forward to fasten the buckle—and fall off the chair.

Thus begins my first private tango lesson.


**********************************************


What Price the Tango Smile?

My dentist hands me a tube of extra-heavy-duty bleaching agent. I am an extra-heavy-duty drinker of coffee and red wine.

“You’ll want to avoid those for a few days after using this stuff,” he says. “Your teeth are more susceptible to staining just after you bleach.”

No problem. For the sake of a beautiful tango smile, I can master the craving …

… for four hours.


*********************************************

My First Private Tango Lesson, Part 2

What would you like to work on today? Grisha asks, graciously ignoring the commotion. He squealed a little when the chair went over but quickly recovered.

Me too.

When you start your lesson by falling off a chair, you have pretty much gotten the worst out of the way, so can settle down and enjoy yourself.

My goal is simple: I want to take Julio and Corinna’s classes in three weeks and I don’t want to embarrass myself.

Not as a follower, anyway. Apparently I can’t control what happens re: chairs, tables, stairs.

That’s what I tell Grisha. But embarrassment is beside the point. The point is: I don’t want to get in the way of my partner’s learning. The men work hard in class. The least I can do is follow their lead.

Before I even get a chance to explain what I’m thinking, Grisha seconds it.

“The men will be working very hard,” he says. “They will be thinking ‘My foot goes here. Where’s her leg?’”

My job, according to Grisha, is to attend to my technique so the men can concentrate on learning each step.

When Grisha says this, I hear an echo of Chas. In class after class he drove the point home:

Followers don’t have to help.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even know that there is such a thing as helping.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even acknowledge there’s a class going on.

Instead, we should attend to our role: being the best damn follower on the planet.

When I am practicing with Grisha I am not thinking of anything but technique and connecting and being the best damn follower on the planet.

But here in this quiet interval before the music starts, I think of Chas.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Tango in the Lion's Den

Every time I walk into tango, I am tempted to walk right back out. I’m anxious. I feel dread. Of what I don’t know. I only know this: In any situation, anything could happen.

I suppose there’s a name for it. I suppose there’s a drug. (One of my writer friends encourages me to try better living through chemistry. “I’m on ---,” she says. “I walk around thinking, ‘This is what normal is like!’ ”)

Lots of writers are jittery. It's the curse of the overactive imagination. The absurdly inventive graphic artist Robert Crumb has been described as a nervous hamster. William Styron used to write like a madman; he's written no decent fiction since he started on Prozac.

A coil must be tense before it can spring.

That said, reading old posts even I must wonder: What kind of nutjob deliberately walks into her own dark wood …

… four times a week?

There are people who skydive without checking their chutes.
There are people who step between a man’s fist and his wife.
There are people who bang hammers on nuclear warheads.
There are people who free climb, free dive, free love, freely speak up for the lost.

We are adventurers of the present.

I have never been able to pass up a lion’s den without sticking my head in.

Tango tonight, 7 p.m.

Dancing with Grisha, Part 3

Grisha is using women from the class to demonstrate steps as he teaches them. My turn.

Two songs are playing: the tango on the CD and the jingle in my head. Feel free to sing along. It’s quite catchy:

Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Soft knees, soft hips, chin up, oh!
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Axisaxis, get set, go!
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Stand up straighter, raise your wings.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Be here now, don’t think about things.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Don’t look down, but spare his toes.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Mm-hm-mmm…nice cologne.
Don-- Oopsyikessorry!
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.
Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up. Don’t anticipate. Don’t mess up.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Dancing with Grisha, Part 2: Classmates Demo

Grisha, teaching on his own, is using the women of the class as his demo partners. It is fun to watch my classmates dance beautifully with him. They say they are nervous, but you can't tell.

a
A sashays as only A can. She is cocky and classy and oozes lighthearted, self-mocking grace. She’s a dancer, she’ll tell you. She’s performed ballet and tap and modern and who knows what else. Am I imagining that she said she twirled flaming batons en pointe on the back of a galloping pony suspended by ropes in the Circ de Soleil? I wouldn’t be surprised if she had.

b
Imagine Atlanta in sweltering July. A woman saunters. Her skin gives up a fine sweat. Her joints have melted, her whole body gone soft. She takes one step. ... Another. Lazy and loose and precise all at once. There is nowhere she’d rather be than here in this moment, in her own body, in sweltering July. She thinks of iced tea, of eating a peach. Replace the tea with tequila, and you have B.

c
C giggles. This has nothing to do with Grisha or being nervous. C giggles a lot. She enjoys herself immensely. When you are around her, you enjoy yourself, too. She knows who’s who and what’s what. She likes men and she knows how to keep them in line. She whirls through the demo with Grisha, laughs when she misses a step and kicks him in the shins.

Demos over. Now we dance, Grisha says.

Great Moments in Tango Teaching I: Roberta

There is one extra woman at the Blue Ice tonight. It is me. I am glad.

I am indulging a mood. My game face is slipping, and I don’t feel like dragging it back into place.

I am not staying home, though. I am here. I like to learn to dance. I like to work on the moves.

It’s just that tonight, I’d rather do it alone.

Roberta shouts hello every week as I walk into Blue Ice. She loves to see me. She loves to see everyone. She tosses out warm fuzzies as if she had an endless supply. I believe that she does. Love is like that.

Roberta loves it all. She loves the costumes. She is wearing an adorable outfit from BA. Cheerleader skirt, short and pleated, with a wide-striped sweater. Soon the sweater will come off and underneath will be some tiny top. Her shoes are tinier still, She is a little tiny doll in little tiny clothes.

A tiny dolly dynamo.

“Hey kids, let’s get started!” she says. She wriggles, stamps her feet in her tiny tiny shoes. They ring like jackhammers.

Roberta dances over to the CD player. Blip. Blip. Blip. Looking for something that strikes her just right.

The CD player is eager to please her. When it does, she says, "Thank you!" Flicks her feet, strikes a pose.

We stretch. We do Evil Hooks Behind. These are familiar warm-ups. They are like barre work in ballet: Warming up the body, shedding the day, bringing us into the moment.

But it’s not working for me. Not tonight.

I don’t want anything to do with anyone I don’t know. I don’t want anyone in my personal space. This would be a good night to do my own kind of bar work: ochos at the stand-up bar, turns around the stools. Sometimes an inanimate partner is the best kind.

Roberta tells us to take partners. If you’re in a class with extra women, she who hesitates is lost. I hesitate good and long.

Roberta sets the partners in motion. She comes over to me.

"What’s up?" she chirps.

"I don’t want to dance with a stranger tonight," I mumble.

She must think I am nuts. I’ve danced with these guys for six months. And … This is tango.

Roberta goes quiet. She nods like the mom that she is, hearing a child’s complaint.

“You’ll dance with me tonight,” she says matter-of-factly, taking me into her embrace.

She’s a good mom. She doesn’t tell me to snap out of it. She doesn’t laugh at the incongruity of a woman in tango who’d rather be alone.

Neither does she let me off the hook. She makes me work hard. She knows I like that.

Intermittently she leaves to coach the other dancers, to demonstrate a new step, change out the music. Every time we change partners, she comes back to me.

Shut up and dance, indeed.


Roberta