Tango taxis.
It's prostitution! Nina yells.
Is not!
Is too!
Is not!
Who cares?
Is not!
Is too!
Obvious jokes.
Is not!
Is too!
That's pretty much the gist of the TC listserv for the week following a new board member's brainstorm to provide experienced dancers (mostly male) with free admission to a practica if they would agree to dance with the (mostly female) wallflowers so they won't get discouraged and quit.
In the end, the taxis won out. Now every Tuesday at the Turn, you will find several women and a few men adorned with ENORMOUS fake flower corsages, a little smashed. (The flowers, that is. From the close embrace.) Originally, the board member proposed that the taxis wear armbands, so people know who they are. This was deemed too embarrassing for the wallflowers. Hence the Rocky Horror Picture Show corsages.
This is how we do things in Tango Colorado; kind of goofy, but it mostly works out well in the end.
Deb and Brian Sclar, Dance of the Heart, take a different tack. Their taxis are intermediate dancers who are teaching assistants. At the two classes and milonga I visited, assistants offered little instruction or coaching, rather danced with the glut of women. It was nice to have them: It was nice to see no one stuck on the sidelines during class, and during the milonga was nice to have the competition siphoned off to the assistants--leaving the leads I like free to dance with me!
All of this to say, Tango Cherie has an article on this topic at her blog.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Chacarera, part 2
This is how it starts:
Incense. Prayer. On the table beside the stereo is the Spanish language version of a moving book, The Mastery of Love. With a brief prayer and meditation, Daniel invites us into a space that is not about dancing so much as the movement of our hearts.
The clapping is not so difficult. It is ma-Ma, pa-PA, Daniel says.
The choreography is easy. If you can count to three and cross one leg in front of the other without falling down, you can do it.
Thanks to twelve years of music study I can count to three if someone helps me get started. Thanks to two years of tango study I can cross one leg in front of the other without falling down.
There is some difficulty about the arms. Most people at first, they look like they are robots made of Legos. But if you have always harbored a secret dream to be a chorus girl in 1940 B-grade musicals, you can lift your arms just right.
The steps are easy and repetitious. It's fun to have someone opposite you, not in an embrace but connected just the same.
It's so easy that you can soon forget about the steps and lead wtith your heart.
We end in a circle, praying for peace.
I am cut out for chacarera!
Incense. Prayer. On the table beside the stereo is the Spanish language version of a moving book, The Mastery of Love. With a brief prayer and meditation, Daniel invites us into a space that is not about dancing so much as the movement of our hearts.
The clapping is not so difficult. It is ma-Ma, pa-PA, Daniel says.
The choreography is easy. If you can count to three and cross one leg in front of the other without falling down, you can do it.
Thanks to twelve years of music study I can count to three if someone helps me get started. Thanks to two years of tango study I can cross one leg in front of the other without falling down.
There is some difficulty about the arms. Most people at first, they look like they are robots made of Legos. But if you have always harbored a secret dream to be a chorus girl in 1940 B-grade musicals, you can lift your arms just right.
The steps are easy and repetitious. It's fun to have someone opposite you, not in an embrace but connected just the same.
It's so easy that you can soon forget about the steps and lead wtith your heart.
We end in a circle, praying for peace.
I am cut out for chacarera!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Chacarera
Here’s how it starts:
Fast, tricky music. Then clapping. Then Daniel and his partner. She sways and skips. His feet fly. He follows the geometry of the rhythm. Who knew? I never imagined rhythm had geometry until I saw it in Daniel’s feet.
Chacarera is a flirtatious dance. The man shows off his fancy footwork to impress the girl, his partner.
The girl has it easy. She just has to raise her arms in a bowed way, as if she were carrying a huge basket filled with flowers, and skip around like a chorus girl in a B-grade American movie about Greece. If she is wearing a very full skirt she gets to play around with it--lift the edges and swish!, showing her knees.
How much fun is that?!
In two hours I am going to find out.
Since the announcement of the classes a month ago, I have been deciding not to go. I have to keep deciding not to go because I keep being tempted to try it.
I am not cut out for Chacarera. It is fast and vigorous, and fast and vigorous scares me. For no apparent reason, but still, one does not have to have reasons to feel fear.
Also, there’s the matter of rhythm. I have none. Whatsoever.
Hmm…
Tuesday night at the Turn Daniel and his partner performed. Last night at the Merc they invited dancers who know Chacarera to join them. Carla and Brian got out there. They had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t look foolish; they looked like they were trying something new.
Hmm…
Later, chatting with a lead, he said he wanted to take the class but had no partner.
Hmmm…?
I am going to stink at this. Really stink. My partner expects he will, too. That will make it easy for both of us.
Even better, we will be in a room full of people who get it … that you have to start somewhere, and some of us start pretty far back in the pack.
They deal with it in the same way that golfers do: give one another allowances, so everyone can play. In golf they call it a handicap; in Tango Colorado they don’t call it anything, it just goes with the territory.
It’s the blessing of Tango Colorado. Sometimes the community is described as a dysfunctional family, but that is not the whole truth. We are a family in this good way too: Even when we are yelling at one another, we preserve a sense that we are all in this together. We stink and then we get better in ways that encompass much more than dancing.
But for today, I only need the space and grace to really stink at this new kind of dancing. I will get both. Not only from the tango community, but from me, too. In the past year I’ve learned that, for all the slings and arrows, my harshest critic is me. But I can also be my biggest fan. When I started this essay I wasn't sure I could go through with the class after all. I’ve just spent the last hour writing myself a pep talk. Here’s the finale:
I am going to really stink at this today … and then I am going to get better. The dance of a thousand intricate steps begins with a single one, etc., etc.
I am enamored of freedom, and there is nothing more freeing than agreeing to let yourself be, really be, a beginner.
I am an Adventurer of the Moment!
The Adventurer must go get dressed. I’m wearing my blue dress. It’s casual and pretty, and the skirt goes Swish!
Fast, tricky music. Then clapping. Then Daniel and his partner. She sways and skips. His feet fly. He follows the geometry of the rhythm. Who knew? I never imagined rhythm had geometry until I saw it in Daniel’s feet.
Chacarera is a flirtatious dance. The man shows off his fancy footwork to impress the girl, his partner.
The girl has it easy. She just has to raise her arms in a bowed way, as if she were carrying a huge basket filled with flowers, and skip around like a chorus girl in a B-grade American movie about Greece. If she is wearing a very full skirt she gets to play around with it--lift the edges and swish!, showing her knees.
How much fun is that?!
In two hours I am going to find out.
Since the announcement of the classes a month ago, I have been deciding not to go. I have to keep deciding not to go because I keep being tempted to try it.
I am not cut out for Chacarera. It is fast and vigorous, and fast and vigorous scares me. For no apparent reason, but still, one does not have to have reasons to feel fear.
Also, there’s the matter of rhythm. I have none. Whatsoever.
Hmm…
Tuesday night at the Turn Daniel and his partner performed. Last night at the Merc they invited dancers who know Chacarera to join them. Carla and Brian got out there. They had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t look foolish; they looked like they were trying something new.
Hmm…
Later, chatting with a lead, he said he wanted to take the class but had no partner.
Hmmm…?
I am going to stink at this. Really stink. My partner expects he will, too. That will make it easy for both of us.
Even better, we will be in a room full of people who get it … that you have to start somewhere, and some of us start pretty far back in the pack.
They deal with it in the same way that golfers do: give one another allowances, so everyone can play. In golf they call it a handicap; in Tango Colorado they don’t call it anything, it just goes with the territory.
It’s the blessing of Tango Colorado. Sometimes the community is described as a dysfunctional family, but that is not the whole truth. We are a family in this good way too: Even when we are yelling at one another, we preserve a sense that we are all in this together. We stink and then we get better in ways that encompass much more than dancing.
But for today, I only need the space and grace to really stink at this new kind of dancing. I will get both. Not only from the tango community, but from me, too. In the past year I’ve learned that, for all the slings and arrows, my harshest critic is me. But I can also be my biggest fan. When I started this essay I wasn't sure I could go through with the class after all. I’ve just spent the last hour writing myself a pep talk. Here’s the finale:
I am going to really stink at this today … and then I am going to get better. The dance of a thousand intricate steps begins with a single one, etc., etc.
I am enamored of freedom, and there is nothing more freeing than agreeing to let yourself be, really be, a beginner.
I am an Adventurer of the Moment!
The Adventurer must go get dressed. I’m wearing my blue dress. It’s casual and pretty, and the skirt goes Swish!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Magic Lucky Tango Nights
Magic Lucky Tango Nights. A small festival built around live music.
What does it mean to build a festival around music?
Lively--gleeful, even--give-and-take among musicians and dancers in classes, lecture and concert, milongas.
It was magic.
At first we didn't know what to make of the musicians, then we adored them; they were proud of our progress and told us so. The air glowed. At times, you could see the orchestra and dancers reaching out to one another. Taking to the floor was like entering light. Saying goodbye, one of the organizers said with feeling, "This isn't a festival. It's a family."
We were all lucky to be there.
What does it mean to build a festival around music?
Lively--gleeful, even--give-and-take among musicians and dancers in classes, lecture and concert, milongas.
It was magic.
At first we didn't know what to make of the musicians, then we adored them; they were proud of our progress and told us so. The air glowed. At times, you could see the orchestra and dancers reaching out to one another. Taking to the floor was like entering light. Saying goodbye, one of the organizers said with feeling, "This isn't a festival. It's a family."
We were all lucky to be there.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Magic Lucky Tango Festival
Today I go to Las Vegas for the Magic Lucky Tango Festival.
My stomach is going with me, but under protest. It has been protesting for the past week.
I could enumerate the reasons but if you have read this blog for more than a week, you can guess all the usual suspects. Here's the short version: Las Vegas is very busy and high-energy, a kind of atmosphere that puts me in cornered-cat mode. It occurs to me there will be strangers there. Walking into a room full of strangers--cornered cat mode. I might be expected to actually dance with these strangers. Cat-under-the-sofa-for-a-week mode.
I am going because Los Hermanos Macana are teaching and performing. There are other very famous people as well. But they are the only reason I am going. If you haven't seen them dance, look for them on YouTube.
When deciding to go o I had half-decided to go, debating the pros (Los Hermanos Macana) and cons (strangers! eek!) when one of my practice partners offered to take the classes with me. This is also not good. I do not want to coddle myself in the face of this phobia of strangers. But I will put that bit on hold for now, because Los Hermanos Macana are teaching!
Still, you don't spend all of your time in classes. There milongas as well. At the Turn, you can always escape to the purple fainting couch in the enormous and beautifully decorated ladies lounge. At the Merc you can calm yourself by popping into the special room set aside for Bad Poets and Leftover Hippe Musicians.
What can you do in Vegas?
Count on magic and luck!
* * *
Warning: Contains Provocative Content
Oh for crying out loud. Am I about to Eeek! yet again?
[Impatient sigh.
Oh. That feels good.
Breathe.]
OK. Better now. Let’s move on.
I am in Las Vegas.
This is Magic Lucky Tango weekend. Graciela Gonzalez. Los Hermanos Macana. Fernanda and Guillermo. Pepe and Pablo Motta.
Whoo-hoo!
But before the fun can begin, I must get from the airport to the hotel. An elderly man sits next to me on the shuttle. He’d like to be friends. I’d like to look out the window.
Oh, my.
I am not prepared for Las Vegas.
I knew to expect the garish, over-the-top, conspicuous consumption Disney-for-grownups outlandishness of it all. I knew there were joints where the dancers are topless and that the window dressing can be quite lovely and even formal, so that the show serves as a palimpsest on which dancers and audience coauthor, over and over, new versions of old tales: holes drilled in the walls of girls’ locker rooms, glimpses through gaps in doors or curtains, Adam after the apple ogling Eve.
I am not prepared for the ubiquity of nudity.
I come from modest people. I don’t believe I have ever seen my father in shorts or a shirt without sleeves. Nor his father. I saw Keith without his shirt quite often, of course, but in general, a conventional marriage narrows a woman’s nudity-viewing options. I have no TV and I do not watch commercial movies. I do not read consumer magazines or women’s fiction. Denver’s billboards sell sports and IT. So perhaps I am a little less prepared for Las Vegas than another person might be.
I am not prepared, for example, for the bus-sized photo of the Chippendale crew. Or the billboard of three gorgeous women, topless but for the black bars photographers use to preserve their subjects’ identities. It seems that every flat surface in sight is covered in body parts, all tanned, some with faces attached.
I am not prepared for the billboard showing a photo of the back of a woman, shoulders almost to thighs—indirect lighting, very artsy--with the tagline “Always a happy ending” and, in huge letters, the word Tao.
This was not covered in The Tao of Pooh.
Nor am I prepared--not in the least, never could be, could not have imagined—that, when the shuttle dropped me on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, I would be greeted by a life-size, bronze relief sculpture of a line of chorus girls, bare backsides to the breeze, glinting in the fading sun … with an aging frat-boy-type tourist crouching near the girl in the center, polishing her curves, huge wolfish smile, mugging for his friend’s camera.
Do I let out an eek? Certainly not! I put on my Hell’s Kitchen face (jaded annoyance), wait until the boys finish, and breeze into the lobby with my “I do not have time for you or anyone else on this planet” walk.
Actually, I do not have much time. In two hours I going to see The Reve, a Cirque d’ Soleil type show with lots of water effects. Synchronized swimming, even!
I did not plan to see a show in Vegas; I do not enjoy pop music or magic or female impersonators and would die of embarrassment if I ended up looking at strangers with an absence of clothes. But a colleague told me about The Reve, and I made the mistake of telling my festival partner about it, and now we are going together, even though I don’t know him except to dance with and the idea of watching a show with a virtual stranger is not only unappealing (I like to be alone!) but has prompted the shyness butterflies to launch their own Circ-style show in my stomach.
It’s business as usual there in the stomach. It does not prevent me from looking forward to the show. I was born to water! I am Aquarius, and though my starstruck friends inform me that’s an air sign, I note that the symbol and the name of the sign is Water Bearer and I was born in Michigan, which is three-quarters island amid inland seas. Also, I once saw an excerpt of a Cirque show, and the inventiveness took my breath away.
Thus I am humming distractedly as I unlock the room, open the drapes to check the view through what turns out to be a tiny window (rooftop courtyard packed with air conditioning machinery), redraw the drapes, unpack, freshen up, scour the attic of my brain for topics of small talk.
This will be fine. There is only one hour before the show to fill with chat. After the show, there will be plenty to talk about—the acrobatics and staging and costumes. During the show, of course, there is no need to chat so, as long as the ladies keep all of their clothes on, everything will be fine.
Yes, this will be great!, I think, right up to the moment I walk out the door, scanning the confirmation paperwork we need to pick up the tickets, and my eye falls on the fine print:
“Contains provocative content not suitable for …”
!!!
.
.
.
Oh, what the heck:
Eeek!
My stomach is going with me, but under protest. It has been protesting for the past week.
I could enumerate the reasons but if you have read this blog for more than a week, you can guess all the usual suspects. Here's the short version: Las Vegas is very busy and high-energy, a kind of atmosphere that puts me in cornered-cat mode. It occurs to me there will be strangers there. Walking into a room full of strangers--cornered cat mode. I might be expected to actually dance with these strangers. Cat-under-the-sofa-for-a-week mode.
I am going because Los Hermanos Macana are teaching and performing. There are other very famous people as well. But they are the only reason I am going. If you haven't seen them dance, look for them on YouTube.
When deciding to go o I had half-decided to go, debating the pros (Los Hermanos Macana) and cons (strangers! eek!) when one of my practice partners offered to take the classes with me. This is also not good. I do not want to coddle myself in the face of this phobia of strangers. But I will put that bit on hold for now, because Los Hermanos Macana are teaching!
Still, you don't spend all of your time in classes. There milongas as well. At the Turn, you can always escape to the purple fainting couch in the enormous and beautifully decorated ladies lounge. At the Merc you can calm yourself by popping into the special room set aside for Bad Poets and Leftover Hippe Musicians.
What can you do in Vegas?
Count on magic and luck!
* * *
Warning: Contains Provocative Content
Oh for crying out loud. Am I about to Eeek! yet again?
[Impatient sigh.
Oh. That feels good.
Breathe.]
OK. Better now. Let’s move on.
I am in Las Vegas.
This is Magic Lucky Tango weekend. Graciela Gonzalez. Los Hermanos Macana. Fernanda and Guillermo. Pepe and Pablo Motta.
Whoo-hoo!
But before the fun can begin, I must get from the airport to the hotel. An elderly man sits next to me on the shuttle. He’d like to be friends. I’d like to look out the window.
Oh, my.
I am not prepared for Las Vegas.
I knew to expect the garish, over-the-top, conspicuous consumption Disney-for-grownups outlandishness of it all. I knew there were joints where the dancers are topless and that the window dressing can be quite lovely and even formal, so that the show serves as a palimpsest on which dancers and audience coauthor, over and over, new versions of old tales: holes drilled in the walls of girls’ locker rooms, glimpses through gaps in doors or curtains, Adam after the apple ogling Eve.
I am not prepared for the ubiquity of nudity.
I come from modest people. I don’t believe I have ever seen my father in shorts or a shirt without sleeves. Nor his father. I saw Keith without his shirt quite often, of course, but in general, a conventional marriage narrows a woman’s nudity-viewing options. I have no TV and I do not watch commercial movies. I do not read consumer magazines or women’s fiction. Denver’s billboards sell sports and IT. So perhaps I am a little less prepared for Las Vegas than another person might be.
I am not prepared, for example, for the bus-sized photo of the Chippendale crew. Or the billboard of three gorgeous women, topless but for the black bars photographers use to preserve their subjects’ identities. It seems that every flat surface in sight is covered in body parts, all tanned, some with faces attached.
I am not prepared for the billboard showing a photo of the back of a woman, shoulders almost to thighs—indirect lighting, very artsy--with the tagline “Always a happy ending” and, in huge letters, the word Tao.
This was not covered in The Tao of Pooh.
Nor am I prepared--not in the least, never could be, could not have imagined—that, when the shuttle dropped me on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, I would be greeted by a life-size, bronze relief sculpture of a line of chorus girls, bare backsides to the breeze, glinting in the fading sun … with an aging frat-boy-type tourist crouching near the girl in the center, polishing her curves, huge wolfish smile, mugging for his friend’s camera.
Do I let out an eek? Certainly not! I put on my Hell’s Kitchen face (jaded annoyance), wait until the boys finish, and breeze into the lobby with my “I do not have time for you or anyone else on this planet” walk.
Actually, I do not have much time. In two hours I going to see The Reve, a Cirque d’ Soleil type show with lots of water effects. Synchronized swimming, even!
I did not plan to see a show in Vegas; I do not enjoy pop music or magic or female impersonators and would die of embarrassment if I ended up looking at strangers with an absence of clothes. But a colleague told me about The Reve, and I made the mistake of telling my festival partner about it, and now we are going together, even though I don’t know him except to dance with and the idea of watching a show with a virtual stranger is not only unappealing (I like to be alone!) but has prompted the shyness butterflies to launch their own Circ-style show in my stomach.
It’s business as usual there in the stomach. It does not prevent me from looking forward to the show. I was born to water! I am Aquarius, and though my starstruck friends inform me that’s an air sign, I note that the symbol and the name of the sign is Water Bearer and I was born in Michigan, which is three-quarters island amid inland seas. Also, I once saw an excerpt of a Cirque show, and the inventiveness took my breath away.
Thus I am humming distractedly as I unlock the room, open the drapes to check the view through what turns out to be a tiny window (rooftop courtyard packed with air conditioning machinery), redraw the drapes, unpack, freshen up, scour the attic of my brain for topics of small talk.
This will be fine. There is only one hour before the show to fill with chat. After the show, there will be plenty to talk about—the acrobatics and staging and costumes. During the show, of course, there is no need to chat so, as long as the ladies keep all of their clothes on, everything will be fine.
Yes, this will be great!, I think, right up to the moment I walk out the door, scanning the confirmation paperwork we need to pick up the tickets, and my eye falls on the fine print:
“Contains provocative content not suitable for …”
!!!
.
.
.
Oh, what the heck:
Eeek!
One Heart Responds to Her Critic(s)
Let's back up a moment, to September 4, In Which One Heart Cooks Dinner.
Two-of-Six writes to say "that's disgusting!"
A writer never responds to the critics. Of course not. Cast not your pearls before swine and all that. No. You think kind thoughts about them, hoping this will create a harmonic convergence in their brain that will either cause them to love you or give them tinnitus.
Nevertheless. Sometimes a critic voices an opinion with such tone and wit that, despite its vacuity and wrongheadedness may become generally accepted.
So. I would like to disclose to you the sordid truth of this person whose opinon with which you may be agreeing. I know this sort of mudslinging is mostly ineffective. Look at Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton: Despite their fallabilities, people still hang on their words.
Nevertheless, a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do and at this moment I gotta set you straight on who is the Real Cook here.
Four-of-Six (that would be me) is the author of a cookbook. Not one of those community/church compilations with the weird plastic binding. A beautiful, full-color, illustrated children's gardening cookbook. It earned high reviews in national newspapers and more awards than I ever kept track of, from writers groups and booksellers and parenting groups.
In contrast...
Two-of-Six dusts her kitchen. Yep. Sweeps the cobwebs and dust bunnies off the stove top, out of the oven.
Years ago, she hosted Thanksgiving. She got stuck making the turkey. She tried to fish out the gizzard and neck with a spoon so she wouldn't have to touch anything. She gagged the whole time.
My mother can't laugh. A favorite childhood story involves my mother and her mother in the kitchen one night before Thanksgiving, wrestling the damn turkey, swearing like sailors.
But back to my critic. How much does she not cook? When her children were in day care, they came home one day to share amazing news:
Mom! they said. We had meat on a stick! And a drink on our potatoes!
(Chicken leg and potatoes with gravy.)
Of course, there is a difference between refusing to cook and lacking ability. Two-of-Six can cook. One of the favorites she made for her children has become a family staple. She has to make it for every single family function, and she is darn sick of it. Still, it's better than cooking the turkey.
It is Fluff. It is mostly synthetic. You can make it without actually touching any real food. Jello and frozen strawberries and maybe marshmallow creme or Cool Whip or something.
Disgusting, Two-of-Six. Disgusting!
And yummy.
Two-of-Six writes to say "that's disgusting!"
A writer never responds to the critics. Of course not. Cast not your pearls before swine and all that. No. You think kind thoughts about them, hoping this will create a harmonic convergence in their brain that will either cause them to love you or give them tinnitus.
Nevertheless. Sometimes a critic voices an opinion with such tone and wit that, despite its vacuity and wrongheadedness may become generally accepted.
So. I would like to disclose to you the sordid truth of this person whose opinon with which you may be agreeing. I know this sort of mudslinging is mostly ineffective. Look at Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton: Despite their fallabilities, people still hang on their words.
Nevertheless, a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do and at this moment I gotta set you straight on who is the Real Cook here.
Four-of-Six (that would be me) is the author of a cookbook. Not one of those community/church compilations with the weird plastic binding. A beautiful, full-color, illustrated children's gardening cookbook. It earned high reviews in national newspapers and more awards than I ever kept track of, from writers groups and booksellers and parenting groups.
In contrast...
Two-of-Six dusts her kitchen. Yep. Sweeps the cobwebs and dust bunnies off the stove top, out of the oven.
Years ago, she hosted Thanksgiving. She got stuck making the turkey. She tried to fish out the gizzard and neck with a spoon so she wouldn't have to touch anything. She gagged the whole time.
My mother can't laugh. A favorite childhood story involves my mother and her mother in the kitchen one night before Thanksgiving, wrestling the damn turkey, swearing like sailors.
But back to my critic. How much does she not cook? When her children were in day care, they came home one day to share amazing news:
Mom! they said. We had meat on a stick! And a drink on our potatoes!
(Chicken leg and potatoes with gravy.)
Of course, there is a difference between refusing to cook and lacking ability. Two-of-Six can cook. One of the favorites she made for her children has become a family staple. She has to make it for every single family function, and she is darn sick of it. Still, it's better than cooking the turkey.
It is Fluff. It is mostly synthetic. You can make it without actually touching any real food. Jello and frozen strawberries and maybe marshmallow creme or Cool Whip or something.
Disgusting, Two-of-Six. Disgusting!
And yummy.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Onion Cure
My grandfather believed that you could cure a cold with a good onion sandwich. He lived to 93 or thereabouts; maybe the onion was more efficacious than he knew. Why not?
Butter some bread and sprinkle sugar on it, then pile on thick silces of onion so strong your eyes water just reading this sentence.
Eat it up! You'll feel better!
Maybe that's what I need.
* * *
Let's say you have had a lovely night of tango and wake up the next morning to malaise.
Midmorning, you skip out to the little bakery near the office, order an egg and dry toast. It is a good breakfast and the owner, who runs the place, is a nice person. You fasted on Sunday, but now it is Monday and you danced for nearly 6 hours between practica and class and the wedding party last night.
You should eat.
Sigh.
It is just too much. Much better to look out the window and watch the cars pull in and then pull away.
After a while, you poke the toast, even touch it to your lips, but biting into it seems the most effort-full, uninteresting thing in the world to do.
The coffee is terrific, however. Near the refills station, someone has left a newspaper. Your eye falls on the headlines:
"National Endowment for the Arts Funds Construction of $1.3 Billion Poem"
"Brave Mountain Lion Fends Off Group of Hikers"
:)
My these eggs are tasty!
Where's the butter and jam?
How can a mood turn on a dime?
The Onion. Good for what ails you.
Butter some bread and sprinkle sugar on it, then pile on thick silces of onion so strong your eyes water just reading this sentence.
Eat it up! You'll feel better!
Maybe that's what I need.
* * *
Let's say you have had a lovely night of tango and wake up the next morning to malaise.
Midmorning, you skip out to the little bakery near the office, order an egg and dry toast. It is a good breakfast and the owner, who runs the place, is a nice person. You fasted on Sunday, but now it is Monday and you danced for nearly 6 hours between practica and class and the wedding party last night.
You should eat.
Sigh.
It is just too much. Much better to look out the window and watch the cars pull in and then pull away.
After a while, you poke the toast, even touch it to your lips, but biting into it seems the most effort-full, uninteresting thing in the world to do.
The coffee is terrific, however. Near the refills station, someone has left a newspaper. Your eye falls on the headlines:
"National Endowment for the Arts Funds Construction of $1.3 Billion Poem"
"Brave Mountain Lion Fends Off Group of Hikers"
:)
My these eggs are tasty!
Where's the butter and jam?
How can a mood turn on a dime?
The Onion. Good for what ails you.
Monday, September 15, 2008
A Lovely Night
Last night I danced all night at Halina and Chuck’s wedding blowout milonga, the party of the summer.
The Avalon ballroom is a cross between temple and fairyland: Golden hardwood stretching to eternity, a sky of draped chiffon entwined with tiny white lights.
Every favorite lead is there, a rare treat! Glenlivet is in from New York. Andrey shoots me a stern, twinkly look that says he is ready for some serious dancing. They are dashing in head-to-toe black. The Mathematician, as usual, is surrounded by women, but we know that, as usual, we'll find one another when the crowd thins.
My skirt—yards of layered silk, wrapped round and round--delivered everything it promised when it caught my eye in a shop window.
A great tango dancer once said that, to be a truly great tango dancer, one must be in love with his partner. I am in no hurry to be truly great. For a two-year dancer who has just found her feet, you can’t beat shared history and affection and the comfort of familiar physical geography of your beginner buddies, with whom you have ascended the long learning curve from your first wide-straddled, knee-lifting step.
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
At the end, they had to kick out the last few of us.
Despite the chill—cold enough to make dew on the windshields—The Mathematician and I stood under the big, full moon, chatting about this and that. It was not cold. It was that kind of night.
The Avalon ballroom is a cross between temple and fairyland: Golden hardwood stretching to eternity, a sky of draped chiffon entwined with tiny white lights.
Every favorite lead is there, a rare treat! Glenlivet is in from New York. Andrey shoots me a stern, twinkly look that says he is ready for some serious dancing. They are dashing in head-to-toe black. The Mathematician, as usual, is surrounded by women, but we know that, as usual, we'll find one another when the crowd thins.
My skirt—yards of layered silk, wrapped round and round--delivered everything it promised when it caught my eye in a shop window.
A great tango dancer once said that, to be a truly great tango dancer, one must be in love with his partner. I am in no hurry to be truly great. For a two-year dancer who has just found her feet, you can’t beat shared history and affection and the comfort of familiar physical geography of your beginner buddies, with whom you have ascended the long learning curve from your first wide-straddled, knee-lifting step.
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
At the end, they had to kick out the last few of us.
Despite the chill—cold enough to make dew on the windshields—The Mathematician and I stood under the big, full moon, chatting about this and that. It was not cold. It was that kind of night.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
One Heart's Dad Takes a Shot at the B'ar
One Heart’s Dad Takes a Shot at the B’ar
Eeek! I say. Eeek!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
I am telling my parents about the B’ar and the Rascal and the Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, a fellow on whom I will not waste one written word.
Individually their audacity is astonishing. Piled one atop the other in the space of two weeks, confounding. The world is a wonder.
I am tightly wound on a good day. At the moment I am overwrought. Shrill, even. I know that. And yet
EeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I say.
My mother says nothing. She used to be wound tight, but she settled down.
My father listens. I am not the only emotional one in this family of six women, two men; nor the most tightly wound. He has worked out a system for such moments: He keeps still.
When finally, all eeek!ed out, I flop back onto the couch with a what-do-you-make-of-that? gesture, he takes a moment to ponder.
My mother is incisive; she is quick to speak the unstinting truth. In my overwrought state, I rarely welcome the unstinting truth. Over the decades she has worked out her own system for handling the overwrought me: She lets my dad do it.
My father has a way of bringing cosmic truth down to earth, coaxing it to walk through the front door and sit down beside you. He makes the introductions, coaxes you to shake hands, then, closing the door softly behind him, leaves you to work things out.
I trust my father’s take on the world, his kindness and sense of perspective, the wisdom of his years. I am eager to hear what he has to say, but not impatient. He does not rush to judgment, and his insights are well worth the wait.
Finally he speaks.
Seems like you’re getting out more than you used to, he says.
Eeek! I say. Eeek!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
I am telling my parents about the B’ar and the Rascal and the Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, a fellow on whom I will not waste one written word.
Individually their audacity is astonishing. Piled one atop the other in the space of two weeks, confounding. The world is a wonder.
I am tightly wound on a good day. At the moment I am overwrought. Shrill, even. I know that. And yet
EeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I say.
My mother says nothing. She used to be wound tight, but she settled down.
My father listens. I am not the only emotional one in this family of six women, two men; nor the most tightly wound. He has worked out a system for such moments: He keeps still.
When finally, all eeek!ed out, I flop back onto the couch with a what-do-you-make-of-that? gesture, he takes a moment to ponder.
My mother is incisive; she is quick to speak the unstinting truth. In my overwrought state, I rarely welcome the unstinting truth. Over the decades she has worked out her own system for handling the overwrought me: She lets my dad do it.
My father has a way of bringing cosmic truth down to earth, coaxing it to walk through the front door and sit down beside you. He makes the introductions, coaxes you to shake hands, then, closing the door softly behind him, leaves you to work things out.
I trust my father’s take on the world, his kindness and sense of perspective, the wisdom of his years. I am eager to hear what he has to say, but not impatient. He does not rush to judgment, and his insights are well worth the wait.
Finally he speaks.
Seems like you’re getting out more than you used to, he says.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
One Heart Dancing Cooks Dinner
Let's say it's 8:30 p.m., and you are in your sweats, and you have cilantro, jalapeno-garlic olives and V-8 juice in the fridge. And you're hungry. And there is no tango tonight.
Pour V-8 juice in a small saucepan. Now it is soup. While it heats, munch olives and whole cloves of garlic. Do not munch too many cloves of garlic, or the smell will come through your skin the next day, just like the Old Garlic Lady who spoke little English and always sat in your pew in church when you were a kid and you fought with all of your sisters not sit next to her even though had you but known it she was probably Italian or Eastern European and the most interesting person there despite her scent, and you will not have many dances.
When the soup is not too hot, search the cupboard for those little packets of coffee cream you have filched from Denny's and McDonald's and the coffee bar in the apartment's clubhouse, being sure that you have only filched genuine half & half and not Cremora, also not the Irish Creme or Amaretto or Hazlenut (why don't they call it Frangelica?) or chocolate flavored fake creamers, but just the pure half & half which has probably been irradiated so as to stay fresh without refrigeration, and pour three of those into a cup, add the soup and stir.
Pour V-8 juice in a small saucepan. Now it is soup. While it heats, munch olives and whole cloves of garlic. Do not munch too many cloves of garlic, or the smell will come through your skin the next day, just like the Old Garlic Lady who spoke little English and always sat in your pew in church when you were a kid and you fought with all of your sisters not sit next to her even though had you but known it she was probably Italian or Eastern European and the most interesting person there despite her scent, and you will not have many dances.
When the soup is not too hot, search the cupboard for those little packets of coffee cream you have filched from Denny's and McDonald's and the coffee bar in the apartment's clubhouse, being sure that you have only filched genuine half & half and not Cremora, also not the Irish Creme or Amaretto or Hazlenut (why don't they call it Frangelica?) or chocolate flavored fake creamers, but just the pure half & half which has probably been irradiated so as to stay fresh without refrigeration, and pour three of those into a cup, add the soup and stir.
Monday, September 1, 2008
One Heart Wrassels a B'ar, a Rascal, and a Passel of Thoughts
One Heart Wrassles a B’ar
Tuesday, August 19, the Turnverein
This guy was big, taller than me, and wiry. He looked like a long-haul trucker who lived hard, drank hard, loved hard and frequently lost at poker. His hair was longish, thickish, wavyish and white. He had on a permanent press dress shirt and, I suspect, cologne.
So far, so good. A man who carries himself around like a long-haul trucker is sufficiently self-possessed to take on tango. A man who wears a dress shirt and cologne is a man out to please the ladies. For a follower, these are good signs.
He was a beginner, but not exactly a stranger. He had been taking classes for a month or more at the Turn, and he had rented videos a few times when I was working the desk. We had not had occasion to chat, but anyone who deposits $50 for the privilege of renting circa-1970 instructional videos is a serious enough dancer for me.
As a rule I do not judge books by their cover. Well, I do in my heart of hearts, but then I tell my Heart of Hearts to be nice.
So, though he gives me pause, when he asks me to dance I say, “Sure!”
He pulls me too close; apparently his teachers have not told him that the lady gets to choose the embrace. There is a strong odor of hard liquor.
Um-hmph! my Heart of Hearts says.
I make myself big around the middle. This is a trick Nina teaches. She has taught it to me several times on the occasions I have come to her mortified.
He prefers full-body contact. He clasps me to him with an arm strengthened, I imagine, by years of gear-shifting. Then he takes a step … and ah-HA!
As a beginner, he has not yet mastered the skill of coordinating all of his parts, and so he is not very good at maintaining his hold and moving his feet at the same time. Every time his arm slackens, I pull away or make myself big. Every time I do, he re-clasps.
We go at it this way for the whole song, lurching, pulling and hauling. I imagine we could sign on as an act in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show:
One Heart Dancing Wrassels a B’ar!
I imagine this is (a) nothing new to the women of tango and (b) quite entertaining.
The B’ar is insistent, but not rude. He does not clamp me obscenely close; he’s just trying to get into a configuration that feels familiar, right to him.
I am not rude either. I am doing my Beautiful Walk and smiling. It is my rule: Smile when you dance. It is my other rule: Respect beginners by using your Beautiful Walk. In truth, I am on the verge of a laugh. This is slapstick—silliness heightened to hilarity by a dose of discomfort.
I vacillate between hoping no one is watching and hoping Stan is. Someone other than me ought to enjoy this, and if it gives him a chuckle to see yet another hapless situation I have gotten myself into, that would be fine with me.
To be fair, you have to admire a b’ar that can wrassle and dance at the same time without mashing toes or causing crashes. Clearly, the B’ar has learned a few things in his classes. Also, he’s musical. He is a good beginner, and good beginners who stick with it become good dancers.
The dance ends, and we step apart. We started the tanda late, so there is only one dance left. That’s a good thing, because I have a rule: No walking off the floor mid-tanda.
Also, I have a trick at the end of my sleeve: It’s my thumb.
When I was standing in line for my very first community dance, Deb Sclar gave me a tip: If a guy holds you too close, press your thumb into his tricep. Or bicep. Somewhere around there. At first I thought she said armpit, and I reported it that way in the blog. A few days later she approached me: Not the armpit! she said, wrinkling her nose. Sorry, Deb. I know you have more class than that.
I am not above attacking a man’s armpit if he’s holding me too close, but that’s not necessary in this case. When the next song begins, I take a nice, firm grip on his bicep. With my elbow locked at 90 degrees, that gives us about a foot of breathing room.
He tries his best to close the space, but I have muscles and backbone.
“Can you dance open?” I ask, my tone tending toward tart.
He replies in the tone of Leisure Suit Larry: I like to lead with my bod.
My Heart of Hearts erupts in a frenzy of giggles. My tartness cannot withstand such pure, open, outlandish intent.
I admire honesty, even in a B'ar--but no way is he besting me. Not with that line.
I smile brightly. “Some men like to learn to lead open and close so they can dance in the way the lady likes best,” I say brightly. I smile brightly some more.
Score! my Heart of Hearts shouts.
Then my Heart of Hearts settles down, and so does he, and we finish the tanda. I compliment his musicality (positive reinforcement of what he does well) and tell him I enjoyed the dance (positive reinforcement of desired behavior). The wrasslin’ match ends on cordial terms.
Later, when I see him trolling for tall women, I warn my tall friends about the liquor.
One Heart Wrassels a Rascal
Sunday, August 24, The Avalon
He was a short guy, sweet and sort of eager. I had seen him around. He moved like a guy who could dance, though I couldn’t say I’d ever actually seen him on the floor.
The Avalon is a friendly place. If you’re going to stretch your limits, this is a good place to do it. Even if it means breaking a rule to dance with a stranger.
Also, I was having a great night. When I am having a great night, I love tango! Why not share the love?
Perhaps that’s a poor choice of words.
He threw himself on me like a saddle, his arm the girth. I made myself big, he cinched the girth tighter. Then started the pelvic gyration.
Eek! My Heart of Hearts squealed. Help! Help!
My brain bolted for the barn. How else to explain this? I danced the whole, horrid tanda.
I resisted pretty hard but could not put any distance between us. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, even dirty, and hoped no one was looking. Yet I danced the whole, stupid, horrid pelvic tanda. Why?
I had options. I did not need to flop around like a rag doll; just a few days earlier, I proved I have muscles and backbone—and resourcefulness! I could use my thumb to push him off, as Deb Sclar taught me. I could stop dead in my tracks. Say something corrective in a bright, punchy way. Curse in his ear.
I have a rule: No walking off mid-tanda. But I had already broken one rule. Why not another?
I dunno.
Maybe I do know, I just hate to admit it: I’m not consistently good when I find myself in tight places. Resourcefulness is my strong suit, but it requires presence of mind, which in turn requires distance from the situation at hand. Without that, you’re sunk.
Once, after telling Stan how I cleverly extricated myself from a tight spot (the truth is, that spot got a lot tighter than I liked before I got out), I bragged, “I’ve been in lots of tight spots. I’m good at getting myself out of them.”
“Sounds like you’re good at getting yourself into them,” he said.
[Blech. I’m tired of thinking about this. I’m going to take a short break now and look at the photos in Sophia Loren’s biography, which I picked up as a joke for my dad’s birthday but forgot to take to his party. I remember once seeing her in an old movie called Houseboat. She was pretty.
My goodness, her pictures are sexy! I am in no mood for that! But the words are arresting…
Writing of Charlie Chaplin, she says, “The last time I saw him he had some gentle advice for me. ‘You have one failing you must overcome, one thing you must learn if you are to become a completely happy woman, maybe the most important lesson in living: you must learn to say no. You do not know how to say no, Sophia, and that is a serious deficiency. It was very difficult for me, too, but once I learned to say no, life became much easier.’ ”
Amen! says my Heart of Hearts.
And where were you last Sunday? I ask Charlie Chaplin.]
Returning to the question at hand—Why the whole horrid tanda?--my befuddled thinking yields a few possibilities:
He wasn’t a beginner. He knew what he was about. Beginner’s tricks only work on the clueless.
Also, I might have given him cause to believe I would enjoy such a dance. I was wearing jeans that ride a few inches below my waist, with a close-fitting t-shirt tucked in. I like this outfit because the jeans are a little tight in the waistband, which reminds me to dance with my hips, not my knees.
[To be honest, I like the look. I believe it walks up to the line of being sexy without crossing over, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe it does cross the line. When those jeans come out of the laundry, they are going back to Goodwill.]
Also, earlier in the evening I shared a silly moment with a couple of friends, and it put me in a mischievous mood, and when Donna played an Eric Clapton tune that I love, I danced with one of those friends in a way that was downright flirtatious. This could have given him the impression that I am open in that way to all comers.
[And here’s another reason not to dance with strangers. It is not only that you need to spend time observing them so that you have a good sense of what you are letting yourself in for; you also need to give them time to observe you, so they do not misread you.]
Also, I follow best with my face turned in, my forehead on the lead’s temple, and I am discovering that some men interpret that as a personal gesture.
So I reason in retrospect. My Heart of Hearts doesn’t buy it, but I have heard, as every woman has, the suggestion that a woman who chooses to dance a dance like tango has no room to complain about a man’s bad actions. Also, the suggestion that a woman who does not react immediately and vigorously to extricate herself from such a situation does not, in her heart of hearts, object. Also that coercion is not illegal; it is the woman’s job to resist to the extent that is necessary.
My Heart of Hearts doesn’t buy that wholesale, though My Inner Feminist wholly agrees that it's a woman's job, to object as vigorously and unmistakbly as she can.
There are many deeply personal reasons why a woman might be unable to bring herself to vigorously object to the extent that is necessary to extricate herself. In my case, the answer is banal:
I had no presence of mind.
I, who just five days earlier had successfully wrassled the B’ar, had not the presence of mind to use Deb Sclar’s thumb trick nor to follow every teacher’s advice to walk away from a lead who behaves badly.
Why did I have no presence of mind?
At first I was shocked. Everything changed so dramatically and so fast, my head spun. From nice guy to … spirogyropelvisman. I was unnerved. He was much stronger than me, and he was willing to use his strength. Once when I exhaled he cinched his arm so tight I couldn’t breathe. It hurt.
[Do you hear yourself? my Heart of Hearts scolds. Do you hear what you are saying?
Yes, dammit!]
Instead of galvanizing me to vigorous action, it only befuddled me further. I couldn't conceive what was happening, and so couldn't react.
Last summer David Hodgson taught a class in which the followers played a trick on the leads: We planted our feet and refused to take another step. It was great fun, and afterward David said: Remember this, ladies. A man treats you bad, that’s how you do it.
I didn’t forget that lesson, not completely. I mean, I remember it now. Why did I not remember it in the heat of the moment?
Perhaps I failed to feel the courage of my convictions. My mind went to “Eek! Help!” when what I needed was the fire of conviction. It wasn’t there for me to draw on readily, and I couldn’t muster it up in the moment. I find this very interesting. If I lack ready access to that fiery courage, does it mean my convictions are false?
My failings, not his, are the source of my shame.
The blessing of tango is that milonga tandas last for only three songs. His footwork was fast and unfamiliar, I was afraid I might turn an ankle or trip. So, after the lung crushing episode, I gave way and focused on following. I am good at making the best of a bad situation. I am good at survival.
I’m also good at taking care of myself.
The instant the tanda was over, I made a beeline for the door. I listened to Charlotte Church all the way home because she performs nothing that remotely resembles a tango. To stave of bad dreams, I fell asleep to the read-aloud of a silly, charming story set in Moose County, “400 miles north of everywhere”, which has surely never seen a milonga.
I fell asleep feeling dirty and ashamed and woke up the same way. “You know better,” my Heart of Hearts said, but I was unable to shake it.
During a practice session Monday afternoon, I told Stan why I ducked out early the previous night. I was trying to explain why I was dancing poorly, but I didn’t want to say it directly.
Why didn’t you come find me? he asked incredulously. I couldn’t stand to have you around me, I said.
In the entire 2-plus hours of practice, I had 30 successful seconds, when Stan told a joke.
“See, you’re not thinking,” he said as I laughed.
“Don’t think,” is the followers’ mantra. I have been thinking and overthinking this. I have thought about it long enough that the whole picture is ingrained: the experience itself, the feelings afterward, and the analysis. All of this serves a purpose. Finally, I have an answer to Why? that makes sense:
I was caught up in the moment. I failed to distance myself from my circumstances so that I could take reasonable action. This is a failing not of character but of discipline. Practice makes perfect. Next time I will do better.
[Who knew? Detachment is not only the path to enlightenment, but also to self-defense!]
* * *
This isn’t the first time tango has gotten under my skin. I know how to cure it: Hot baths, hard work, discipline and time. A week has passed, I’ve had a hard-working lesson with Grisha, forced myself to dance several tandas with old friends, and taken an unusual number of very hot baths.
Also, I’ve written this. Intellectualizing and stylizing experience is a balm.
Also, a girlfriend told me the guy always dances that way. It wasn’t my jeans or forehead or mischief!
A few hours ago, the annual Labor Day milonga started in the marble pavilion in Cheesman Park. It’s the most beautiful place in Denver to dance. I have a new skirt made of silk, light and floaty and modest. A favorite lead let me know he would be there early. I'm running late, but I’ll get there soon.
Tuesday, August 19, the Turnverein
This guy was big, taller than me, and wiry. He looked like a long-haul trucker who lived hard, drank hard, loved hard and frequently lost at poker. His hair was longish, thickish, wavyish and white. He had on a permanent press dress shirt and, I suspect, cologne.
So far, so good. A man who carries himself around like a long-haul trucker is sufficiently self-possessed to take on tango. A man who wears a dress shirt and cologne is a man out to please the ladies. For a follower, these are good signs.
He was a beginner, but not exactly a stranger. He had been taking classes for a month or more at the Turn, and he had rented videos a few times when I was working the desk. We had not had occasion to chat, but anyone who deposits $50 for the privilege of renting circa-1970 instructional videos is a serious enough dancer for me.
As a rule I do not judge books by their cover. Well, I do in my heart of hearts, but then I tell my Heart of Hearts to be nice.
So, though he gives me pause, when he asks me to dance I say, “Sure!”
He pulls me too close; apparently his teachers have not told him that the lady gets to choose the embrace. There is a strong odor of hard liquor.
Um-hmph! my Heart of Hearts says.
I make myself big around the middle. This is a trick Nina teaches. She has taught it to me several times on the occasions I have come to her mortified.
He prefers full-body contact. He clasps me to him with an arm strengthened, I imagine, by years of gear-shifting. Then he takes a step … and ah-HA!
As a beginner, he has not yet mastered the skill of coordinating all of his parts, and so he is not very good at maintaining his hold and moving his feet at the same time. Every time his arm slackens, I pull away or make myself big. Every time I do, he re-clasps.
We go at it this way for the whole song, lurching, pulling and hauling. I imagine we could sign on as an act in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show:
One Heart Dancing Wrassels a B’ar!
I imagine this is (a) nothing new to the women of tango and (b) quite entertaining.
The B’ar is insistent, but not rude. He does not clamp me obscenely close; he’s just trying to get into a configuration that feels familiar, right to him.
I am not rude either. I am doing my Beautiful Walk and smiling. It is my rule: Smile when you dance. It is my other rule: Respect beginners by using your Beautiful Walk. In truth, I am on the verge of a laugh. This is slapstick—silliness heightened to hilarity by a dose of discomfort.
I vacillate between hoping no one is watching and hoping Stan is. Someone other than me ought to enjoy this, and if it gives him a chuckle to see yet another hapless situation I have gotten myself into, that would be fine with me.
To be fair, you have to admire a b’ar that can wrassle and dance at the same time without mashing toes or causing crashes. Clearly, the B’ar has learned a few things in his classes. Also, he’s musical. He is a good beginner, and good beginners who stick with it become good dancers.
The dance ends, and we step apart. We started the tanda late, so there is only one dance left. That’s a good thing, because I have a rule: No walking off the floor mid-tanda.
Also, I have a trick at the end of my sleeve: It’s my thumb.
When I was standing in line for my very first community dance, Deb Sclar gave me a tip: If a guy holds you too close, press your thumb into his tricep. Or bicep. Somewhere around there. At first I thought she said armpit, and I reported it that way in the blog. A few days later she approached me: Not the armpit! she said, wrinkling her nose. Sorry, Deb. I know you have more class than that.
I am not above attacking a man’s armpit if he’s holding me too close, but that’s not necessary in this case. When the next song begins, I take a nice, firm grip on his bicep. With my elbow locked at 90 degrees, that gives us about a foot of breathing room.
He tries his best to close the space, but I have muscles and backbone.
“Can you dance open?” I ask, my tone tending toward tart.
He replies in the tone of Leisure Suit Larry: I like to lead with my bod.
My Heart of Hearts erupts in a frenzy of giggles. My tartness cannot withstand such pure, open, outlandish intent.
I admire honesty, even in a B'ar--but no way is he besting me. Not with that line.
I smile brightly. “Some men like to learn to lead open and close so they can dance in the way the lady likes best,” I say brightly. I smile brightly some more.
Score! my Heart of Hearts shouts.
Then my Heart of Hearts settles down, and so does he, and we finish the tanda. I compliment his musicality (positive reinforcement of what he does well) and tell him I enjoyed the dance (positive reinforcement of desired behavior). The wrasslin’ match ends on cordial terms.
Later, when I see him trolling for tall women, I warn my tall friends about the liquor.
One Heart Wrassels a Rascal
Sunday, August 24, The Avalon
He was a short guy, sweet and sort of eager. I had seen him around. He moved like a guy who could dance, though I couldn’t say I’d ever actually seen him on the floor.
The Avalon is a friendly place. If you’re going to stretch your limits, this is a good place to do it. Even if it means breaking a rule to dance with a stranger.
Also, I was having a great night. When I am having a great night, I love tango! Why not share the love?
Perhaps that’s a poor choice of words.
He threw himself on me like a saddle, his arm the girth. I made myself big, he cinched the girth tighter. Then started the pelvic gyration.
Eek! My Heart of Hearts squealed. Help! Help!
My brain bolted for the barn. How else to explain this? I danced the whole, horrid tanda.
I resisted pretty hard but could not put any distance between us. I felt embarrassed and ashamed, even dirty, and hoped no one was looking. Yet I danced the whole, stupid, horrid pelvic tanda. Why?
I had options. I did not need to flop around like a rag doll; just a few days earlier, I proved I have muscles and backbone—and resourcefulness! I could use my thumb to push him off, as Deb Sclar taught me. I could stop dead in my tracks. Say something corrective in a bright, punchy way. Curse in his ear.
I have a rule: No walking off mid-tanda. But I had already broken one rule. Why not another?
I dunno.
Maybe I do know, I just hate to admit it: I’m not consistently good when I find myself in tight places. Resourcefulness is my strong suit, but it requires presence of mind, which in turn requires distance from the situation at hand. Without that, you’re sunk.
Once, after telling Stan how I cleverly extricated myself from a tight spot (the truth is, that spot got a lot tighter than I liked before I got out), I bragged, “I’ve been in lots of tight spots. I’m good at getting myself out of them.”
“Sounds like you’re good at getting yourself into them,” he said.
[Blech. I’m tired of thinking about this. I’m going to take a short break now and look at the photos in Sophia Loren’s biography, which I picked up as a joke for my dad’s birthday but forgot to take to his party. I remember once seeing her in an old movie called Houseboat. She was pretty.
My goodness, her pictures are sexy! I am in no mood for that! But the words are arresting…
Writing of Charlie Chaplin, she says, “The last time I saw him he had some gentle advice for me. ‘You have one failing you must overcome, one thing you must learn if you are to become a completely happy woman, maybe the most important lesson in living: you must learn to say no. You do not know how to say no, Sophia, and that is a serious deficiency. It was very difficult for me, too, but once I learned to say no, life became much easier.’ ”
Amen! says my Heart of Hearts.
And where were you last Sunday? I ask Charlie Chaplin.]
Returning to the question at hand—Why the whole horrid tanda?--my befuddled thinking yields a few possibilities:
He wasn’t a beginner. He knew what he was about. Beginner’s tricks only work on the clueless.
Also, I might have given him cause to believe I would enjoy such a dance. I was wearing jeans that ride a few inches below my waist, with a close-fitting t-shirt tucked in. I like this outfit because the jeans are a little tight in the waistband, which reminds me to dance with my hips, not my knees.
[To be honest, I like the look. I believe it walks up to the line of being sexy without crossing over, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe it does cross the line. When those jeans come out of the laundry, they are going back to Goodwill.]
Also, earlier in the evening I shared a silly moment with a couple of friends, and it put me in a mischievous mood, and when Donna played an Eric Clapton tune that I love, I danced with one of those friends in a way that was downright flirtatious. This could have given him the impression that I am open in that way to all comers.
[And here’s another reason not to dance with strangers. It is not only that you need to spend time observing them so that you have a good sense of what you are letting yourself in for; you also need to give them time to observe you, so they do not misread you.]
Also, I follow best with my face turned in, my forehead on the lead’s temple, and I am discovering that some men interpret that as a personal gesture.
So I reason in retrospect. My Heart of Hearts doesn’t buy it, but I have heard, as every woman has, the suggestion that a woman who chooses to dance a dance like tango has no room to complain about a man’s bad actions. Also, the suggestion that a woman who does not react immediately and vigorously to extricate herself from such a situation does not, in her heart of hearts, object. Also that coercion is not illegal; it is the woman’s job to resist to the extent that is necessary.
My Heart of Hearts doesn’t buy that wholesale, though My Inner Feminist wholly agrees that it's a woman's job, to object as vigorously and unmistakbly as she can.
There are many deeply personal reasons why a woman might be unable to bring herself to vigorously object to the extent that is necessary to extricate herself. In my case, the answer is banal:
I had no presence of mind.
I, who just five days earlier had successfully wrassled the B’ar, had not the presence of mind to use Deb Sclar’s thumb trick nor to follow every teacher’s advice to walk away from a lead who behaves badly.
Why did I have no presence of mind?
At first I was shocked. Everything changed so dramatically and so fast, my head spun. From nice guy to … spirogyropelvisman. I was unnerved. He was much stronger than me, and he was willing to use his strength. Once when I exhaled he cinched his arm so tight I couldn’t breathe. It hurt.
[Do you hear yourself? my Heart of Hearts scolds. Do you hear what you are saying?
Yes, dammit!]
Instead of galvanizing me to vigorous action, it only befuddled me further. I couldn't conceive what was happening, and so couldn't react.
Last summer David Hodgson taught a class in which the followers played a trick on the leads: We planted our feet and refused to take another step. It was great fun, and afterward David said: Remember this, ladies. A man treats you bad, that’s how you do it.
I didn’t forget that lesson, not completely. I mean, I remember it now. Why did I not remember it in the heat of the moment?
Perhaps I failed to feel the courage of my convictions. My mind went to “Eek! Help!” when what I needed was the fire of conviction. It wasn’t there for me to draw on readily, and I couldn’t muster it up in the moment. I find this very interesting. If I lack ready access to that fiery courage, does it mean my convictions are false?
My failings, not his, are the source of my shame.
The blessing of tango is that milonga tandas last for only three songs. His footwork was fast and unfamiliar, I was afraid I might turn an ankle or trip. So, after the lung crushing episode, I gave way and focused on following. I am good at making the best of a bad situation. I am good at survival.
I’m also good at taking care of myself.
The instant the tanda was over, I made a beeline for the door. I listened to Charlotte Church all the way home because she performs nothing that remotely resembles a tango. To stave of bad dreams, I fell asleep to the read-aloud of a silly, charming story set in Moose County, “400 miles north of everywhere”, which has surely never seen a milonga.
I fell asleep feeling dirty and ashamed and woke up the same way. “You know better,” my Heart of Hearts said, but I was unable to shake it.
During a practice session Monday afternoon, I told Stan why I ducked out early the previous night. I was trying to explain why I was dancing poorly, but I didn’t want to say it directly.
Why didn’t you come find me? he asked incredulously. I couldn’t stand to have you around me, I said.
In the entire 2-plus hours of practice, I had 30 successful seconds, when Stan told a joke.
“See, you’re not thinking,” he said as I laughed.
“Don’t think,” is the followers’ mantra. I have been thinking and overthinking this. I have thought about it long enough that the whole picture is ingrained: the experience itself, the feelings afterward, and the analysis. All of this serves a purpose. Finally, I have an answer to Why? that makes sense:
I was caught up in the moment. I failed to distance myself from my circumstances so that I could take reasonable action. This is a failing not of character but of discipline. Practice makes perfect. Next time I will do better.
[Who knew? Detachment is not only the path to enlightenment, but also to self-defense!]
* * *
This isn’t the first time tango has gotten under my skin. I know how to cure it: Hot baths, hard work, discipline and time. A week has passed, I’ve had a hard-working lesson with Grisha, forced myself to dance several tandas with old friends, and taken an unusual number of very hot baths.
Also, I’ve written this. Intellectualizing and stylizing experience is a balm.
Also, a girlfriend told me the guy always dances that way. It wasn’t my jeans or forehead or mischief!
A few hours ago, the annual Labor Day milonga started in the marble pavilion in Cheesman Park. It’s the most beautiful place in Denver to dance. I have a new skirt made of silk, light and floaty and modest. A favorite lead let me know he would be there early. I'm running late, but I’ll get there soon.
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