Yikes!

Is it true, as my father believes, that creative, smart people go looking for trouble to spice up lives that are just too easy?

He says this about Five-of-Six, who has put herself in more dire straits more often than you can imagine. He says it about her, but he says it to me. A word to the wise.

I do go looking for trouble.

Trouble—complexities, obstacles, impossible challenges, the alien, surprises, threats--spices up a life I could otherwise live, have done, with one hand tied behind my back.

Living without using all of your faculties is subsisting; routine is a sensory-deprivation tank. Trouble calls on all of your faculties, all at once, urgently.

Looking for trouble is not chasing cheap thrills. Not at all.

Challenges and sensation-seeking: These are nothing. The Adventurer of the Moment bats them away as a superhero does henchmen, and for the same reason: to get at the Main Man, the Joker. To see in the mirror.

Trouble is not trouble if it doesn’t rattle your edifice and the ground it stands on.

Trouble is not trouble if it doesn’t rattle your soul.

Tango is a world of trouble.

Heh, heh.

* * *

Some people don’t go looking for trouble. They are like my father. They do not need to be shaken in order to use all of their faculties. Their territory is the intensity of the particular rather than the vast deeps.

When he was in high school, my father read a novel. Two sisters live in rural England, in the merchant class. One goes to London, pursues a glamorous career on the stage; the other stays home and takes over the family business.

I wanted to be the one who stayed home, my father says.

I am the luckiest daughter in the world.

* * *

Lately I have become better at tango, more accomplished at the gross motor movements, more relaxed about all that shivers me timbers.

I can keep my balance. I can follow most moves. I can set myself and my shivers aside. This spring something clicked, and since then I have been quite sure of my edifice, façade and foundation.

I have not mastered all of the vagaries of tango, and the edifice can go wobbly without notice. Still, for the most part, I stand on solid ground. If I can’t exactly dance with one hand tied behind my back, if I still run too often to the ladies’ with attacks of the vapors, there is a certain routine quality developing.

It no longer takes all of my faculties to dance tango.

This is the only explanation I have for my behavior last Friday night at the Merc.

(No, wait! Here’s another: Dan Diaz was playing.)

I would like to blame it on Grisha, but the poor guy has enough on his hands in trying to teach me this dance. And, I am not such a wimp as to hind behind the skirts of my teacher.

So. This is on me. I took his advice, and a little too far.

Infuse the dance with character, he said. A color, a childhood story.

I take this to mean, Dance what the music evokes.

I can never do this in a lesson. When I am in a lesson the only thing I feel is conscientious.

Friday night, I danced what the music evoked. And then took it further, and danced what I felt. Me.

Yikes!

* * *

I never flirted until I joined tango. Who knew? This is fun! I like to flirt with my speech and my eyes and my dance.

Flirting works because of parameters. Here are mine: I did not come to tango to make friends. I do not hug. I do not take phone numbers, nor give mine out. I do not date. My tango friendships do not extend beyond the milonga. Everyone knows this. I make sure they do, quite early on. The ones who don’t get it, I tell them.

This is a philosophical stance ... with practical implications.

Yes. Here’s one implication: I can flirt as much I please. Where there is no intent, there is no complication.

* * *

Friday night I was not flirting. Friday night I danced with intent.

Yikes!