I have
6 windows
1 balcony holding 1 chair
1 wall painted sage green
1 guitar in a battered case
1 songbook, battered
8 boxes notebooks and journals
4 boxes research notes
2 candles, clove and sandalwood
3 boxes Christmas décor
6 Christmas novels
1 pair winter boots
1 pair hiking boots
1 pair winter hiking boots
2 pair sneakers
2 pair casual shoes
2 pair dress shoes
2 pair so-so tango shoes
1 pair Comme il Faut
1 bed
1 pillow shaped like a chair
1 quilt
1 wooden rocking chair
1 down-stuffed sofa
1 simple old oak desk
1 modern office chair
1 bookshelf, 6 feet tall by 4 feet wide
2 boxes of books that won’t fit on the bookshelf
3 boxes of books too valuable to store on the bookshelf
2 boxes bound magazines, ca.1890
3 file cabinets
5 tables
3 lamps
2 boxes framed photos
3 library cards, battered and covered in stickers like well-traveled suitcases, each sticker allowing borrowing privileges from another library system
1 library card from the Library of Congress
1 beach rock with a hole in it, strung on cheap cord
1 wedding ring
1 packet love letters
1 packet letters from Michigan
1 packet letters from Barbara
1 toolbox, stocked
1 cell phone, mostly turned off uncharged lost
230 sq ft of practice space
31 tango tops
6 pair black tango pants
1 pair tight tango pants
1 pair tighter tango pants
1 pair very tight tango pants
2 tango skirts
2 tango dresses
2 holiday tango dresses
1 tango ball gown
1 pair skin-tight tango pants, too daring to wear
3 tops too daring to wear
2 skirts too daring to wear
3 dresses too daring to wear
1 laptop
* * *
To the extent that one’s possessions indicate one’s attachments and preoccupations, what is to be made of this inventory?
Every possession is a talisman, every one tells a story:
… the sofa, a family joke: Two-of-Six’s third or fourth purchase in her Goldilocks effort to find one that is just right
… the lamp that looks like the Eiffel tower: where Six-of-Six and I went all the way to the top despite his fear of heights
… all of the boots that I own: from Keith, along with thick socks and slippers, gifts for the holiday we dubbed The Christmas of Warm Feet
… framed photo of a country barn painted with a portrait of Baldasaare Castiglione, pale moon in a pale blue sky, winter weeds aglow in late afternoon light, captured by Michigan when he was still just a guy taking pictures
… scented candles by which I hand-write personal letters
… table purchased from Hilda, a Latvian woman who immigrated with nothing but diamonds sewed into the lining of her coat, which she used to purchase the building (next door to Keith’s house) containing the apartment she rented to me
… tango clothes purchased from thrift stores with the secret stories of their original owners still clinging
… skin-tight pants and belly-baring top, worn to perform (that term used loosely) with Glenlivet in a transitory hippie joint entered through a chiffon curtain leading onto the narrow space between two buildings, off an alley in a neighborhood where the only bright lights were the signs in the liquor store window … afterward worn to the Merc for a full 5 minutes before hurrying to the restroom to change into something modest
… almost-done quilt, single-bed size, 24 large squares printed with an intricate, fleur de lis design to be cross-stitched in royal blue, started at age 9, picked up and packed away over the course of 12 years, stitches solicited from summer-camp kids and friends and relatives, then quilted on the same small hoop through an unseasonably cold Arkansas winter, oven on full blast and its door wide open to heat the drafty place, quilt spread over the legs for warmth, in a trailer park on the banks of a country lake actually a wide spot in a river manmade to serve as the cooling pond for a nuclear reactor that the town lobbied hard to get because the tax money would allow the city to reopen its public schools, which had to close despite kids and parents begging door-to-door for money to pay the teachers’ salaries; and despite the jokes about glowing in the dark, the red lights atop the beaker-shaped cooling towers glow in a reassuring way, like nightlights through the bedroom window when the local radio station goes off-air at midnight
… guitar, songbook … a season of magic many years long, ending with Barbara
… mysterious hole in my arm that never goes away, possibly my personal kipuka
… scribbled poem that started it all at age 10 in the dead of night upon being jerked out of sleep by a beckoning idea that could not be followed in dreams but only chased down with feverish pencil … match to tinder, my holy spirit burst into flame
The door to my apartment opens on Wonderland. The space itself greets me. Every possession speaks with affection. Beyond the windows are gardens and trees and a street with lively traffic; all the buildings in sight are covered with ivy. This has the feel of both country cottage and Harvard dormitory. I sit at the window and write. Everywhere I look, my eyes rest on beauty.
Sometimes I feel that I am connected to nothing at all. This is when I am spelunking, so far inside my head I forget eyes and heart were made for looking outward.
Possessions embody all the small bits of our whole, lovely selves. What do I want with a microwave oven, bicycle, nightstand, welcome mat, bowls? These are not my accoutrement. The world of my connection is small and dense. I live in a hothouse, a jungle of flowers. I live in a riot of scent!
Sometimes I feel I am connected to nothing at all, and sometimes I feel I am a node on a great, cosmic ‘Net. Ephemera. Connection. This is my context. I like it. We are nothing so substantial as dust on the wind.
Words are scent. Memories are. Love is. We are.
.
.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A scent
But of course a scent does not exist in a vacuum.
(I meant that metaphorically, but it poses an interesting scientific question.)
You might think that because it floats freely, disembodied, scent is not connected to anything at all.
Imagine.
You are walking into the Sears store in Honolulu, the one in the big mall outside Waikiki. You take the escalator to the floor where they sell formal wear. If you’re going to hang out with Honolulu’s Sinatra, who enjoys buying you a tiny dish of ice cream after each night’s last show and gossiping about what’s going on in Chinatown, who learned 14 languages by approaching them as if they were songs, who after the ice cream insists that you kiss on both cheeks and actually takes your head in his hands when you try to get away with air-kisses before putting you into a cab, who really does, like so many discredited men, want nothing more (but what could be more?) than companionship, then you need to have the cool Mamo mu’u, not some hippie calico thing picked up in the Salvation Army in Hilo. You are riding the escalator. Imagine a scent.
Hold on! First it strikes you. Then it floods you. Before you can name the scent, you feel… you are gone.
Don’t take a tumble! Hold onto the handrail!
You are on an escalator, but it is not the one in Honolulu. It is in Detroit, and you are so little you don’t even know how old you are, and your dad has the warm bag in his hand.
It is roasted peanuts.
Scent connects.
(I meant that metaphorically, but it poses an interesting scientific question.)
You might think that because it floats freely, disembodied, scent is not connected to anything at all.
Imagine.
You are walking into the Sears store in Honolulu, the one in the big mall outside Waikiki. You take the escalator to the floor where they sell formal wear. If you’re going to hang out with Honolulu’s Sinatra, who enjoys buying you a tiny dish of ice cream after each night’s last show and gossiping about what’s going on in Chinatown, who learned 14 languages by approaching them as if they were songs, who after the ice cream insists that you kiss on both cheeks and actually takes your head in his hands when you try to get away with air-kisses before putting you into a cab, who really does, like so many discredited men, want nothing more (but what could be more?) than companionship, then you need to have the cool Mamo mu’u, not some hippie calico thing picked up in the Salvation Army in Hilo. You are riding the escalator. Imagine a scent.
Hold on! First it strikes you. Then it floods you. Before you can name the scent, you feel… you are gone.
Don’t take a tumble! Hold onto the handrail!
You are on an escalator, but it is not the one in Honolulu. It is in Detroit, and you are so little you don’t even know how old you are, and your dad has the warm bag in his hand.
It is roasted peanuts.
Scent connects.
An Interesting Scientific Question
If a flower bloomed in the forest with no one to smell it, would it have scent?
Even in a metaphorical vacuum, a flower would emit its perfume. But perfume is not scent; it is chemical compounds. It becomes scent when it connects with one who has a sense for translation.
And if the perfume found no receptor? Is the flower less alive? Would it, heartbroken, wither and die? No. A flower lives fully, perfuming the world.
Perfume may exist in a vacuum; scent only by virtue of connection.
Words are scent. Memories are. Love is. We are.
Even in a metaphorical vacuum, a flower would emit its perfume. But perfume is not scent; it is chemical compounds. It becomes scent when it connects with one who has a sense for translation.
And if the perfume found no receptor? Is the flower less alive? Would it, heartbroken, wither and die? No. A flower lives fully, perfuming the world.
Perfume may exist in a vacuum; scent only by virtue of connection.
Words are scent. Memories are. Love is. We are.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sometimes I think I may be connected to nothing at all
Sometimes I think I may be connected to nothing at all. My inventory--short-term lease, blank walls, scant furniture, stacks of boxes packed and unpacked (at the ready)--presents mostly ephemera.
This is my context. I like it.
We are nothing so substantial as dust on the wind. We are scent.
This is my context. I like it.
We are nothing so substantial as dust on the wind. We are scent.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
I Have No
Bicycle
Roller blades ice skates
Skis
Satellite Tivo Cable HD
Land line
Internet
TM IM iPod iTunes
Stereo
Radio
Camcorder
TV
Curtains nor drapes
Art on the walls
Framed family photos
Fresh flowers vases
Coffee table knick-knacks souvenirs
Mirror
Refrigerator art
Recycling bin
Garbage bags garbage
Disposal
Dishwasher
Coffeemaker
Microwave
Juicer steamer toaster toaster-oven
George Foreman Grill
Liquor cabinet wine rack liquor
Condiments
Crackers
Hot pads
Pasta
Serving spoons
Cheese knives
Placemats napkins dining room chairs
nor table
Bowls
Air conditioning
Fine sheets soft light
Chest of drawers
Book stack
Bedside lamp
Clock radio
Nightstand
Bible condom-stash gun
Holiday apron
Spare set of keys
Ashtrays
Potted plants yard art
Subscriptions deliveries
Welcome mat
* * *
To the extent that one’s possessions indicate one’s attachments and preoccupations, what is to be made of this dis-inventory?
Clearly the poet has scant attachment to consumer goods or creature comforts or even a domicile.
Perhaps the poet lives in a situation that renders such things moot, for example, a commune, welfare hotel, prison, asylum, nursing home, rehab spa, or monastery.
Every possession is a talisman, every talisman a mirror. Without accoutrement, how do we remember all the small bits of our whole, lovely selves? How do we situate ourselves in the world, space and time?
Without situation, to what can we connect?
Let’s explicate:
The poem is steeped in feminine awareness. Surely the poet is a woman, else the poem would not have been written at all. Or, in the unlikely event, it would have given us a glimpse into other regions of the domicile: the garage or music collection. Would a man have made note of the absence of flour, or the holiday apron?
[Yes. Of course a male writer could mention the flour or apron. But the writer is not the poet who inhabits this piece. The poet of the piece—the character living within the lines—is clearly a feminine presence.]
The poet seems singularly cut off from the world. It is not only the lack of media; every line says it is so. She has no family; a family has bowls. She has no lover; the bedroom is barely utilitarian, a cell. She has no friends—no welcome mat. No media. Not even a magazine crosses her threshold.
Does she live in dead silence?
No art, nor photos nor flower arrangements nor knick-knacks nor potted plants, not even yard art. On what beauty do her eyes rest?
It is precious to point out the lack of a mirror.
Perhaps she has a pet? The poem doesn’t say.
The poem doesn’t say.
Here is an artist’s trick: Draw the white space around objects. You will be amazed by what new things you will see in the same old things: shapes and relationships, varying intensities of light.
White space reveals what is not. In drawing it, you reverse the polarities of real and naught. You make the naught real--and thus render the real, naught?
The imagination laps this stuff up. In the end it leaves you with mystery. This is the holy purpose of art.
But.
It doesn’t do you much good if you’d like to know whether the poet might enjoy a cheese sandwich.
First things first. By making the naught real, the artist does not render the real naught. Of course not. We live in an Einsteinian world: Artists create mystery, they do not destroy matter.
Still, if Einstein were pondering the cheese-sandwich problem, he would be stuck. He could explicate until he was blue in the face. For all its material detail, the white space of this poem gives no answer.
Might the poet enjoy a cheese sandwich? The poem does not say. If you want to know, you must speak first. You must ask, you must say…
Roller blades ice skates
Skis
Satellite Tivo Cable HD
Land line
Internet
TM IM iPod iTunes
Stereo
Radio
Camcorder
TV
Curtains nor drapes
Art on the walls
Framed family photos
Fresh flowers vases
Coffee table knick-knacks souvenirs
Mirror
Refrigerator art
Recycling bin
Garbage bags garbage
Disposal
Dishwasher
Coffeemaker
Microwave
Juicer steamer toaster toaster-oven
George Foreman Grill
Liquor cabinet wine rack liquor
Condiments
Crackers
Hot pads
Pasta
Serving spoons
Cheese knives
Placemats napkins dining room chairs
nor table
Bowls
Air conditioning
Fine sheets soft light
Chest of drawers
Book stack
Bedside lamp
Clock radio
Nightstand
Bible condom-stash gun
Holiday apron
Spare set of keys
Ashtrays
Potted plants yard art
Subscriptions deliveries
Welcome mat
* * *
To the extent that one’s possessions indicate one’s attachments and preoccupations, what is to be made of this dis-inventory?
Clearly the poet has scant attachment to consumer goods or creature comforts or even a domicile.
Perhaps the poet lives in a situation that renders such things moot, for example, a commune, welfare hotel, prison, asylum, nursing home, rehab spa, or monastery.
Every possession is a talisman, every talisman a mirror. Without accoutrement, how do we remember all the small bits of our whole, lovely selves? How do we situate ourselves in the world, space and time?
Without situation, to what can we connect?
Let’s explicate:
The poem is steeped in feminine awareness. Surely the poet is a woman, else the poem would not have been written at all. Or, in the unlikely event, it would have given us a glimpse into other regions of the domicile: the garage or music collection. Would a man have made note of the absence of flour, or the holiday apron?
[Yes. Of course a male writer could mention the flour or apron. But the writer is not the poet who inhabits this piece. The poet of the piece—the character living within the lines—is clearly a feminine presence.]
The poet seems singularly cut off from the world. It is not only the lack of media; every line says it is so. She has no family; a family has bowls. She has no lover; the bedroom is barely utilitarian, a cell. She has no friends—no welcome mat. No media. Not even a magazine crosses her threshold.
Does she live in dead silence?
No art, nor photos nor flower arrangements nor knick-knacks nor potted plants, not even yard art. On what beauty do her eyes rest?
It is precious to point out the lack of a mirror.
Perhaps she has a pet? The poem doesn’t say.
The poem doesn’t say.
Here is an artist’s trick: Draw the white space around objects. You will be amazed by what new things you will see in the same old things: shapes and relationships, varying intensities of light.
White space reveals what is not. In drawing it, you reverse the polarities of real and naught. You make the naught real--and thus render the real, naught?
The imagination laps this stuff up. In the end it leaves you with mystery. This is the holy purpose of art.
But.
It doesn’t do you much good if you’d like to know whether the poet might enjoy a cheese sandwich.
First things first. By making the naught real, the artist does not render the real naught. Of course not. We live in an Einsteinian world: Artists create mystery, they do not destroy matter.
Still, if Einstein were pondering the cheese-sandwich problem, he would be stuck. He could explicate until he was blue in the face. For all its material detail, the white space of this poem gives no answer.
Might the poet enjoy a cheese sandwich? The poem does not say. If you want to know, you must speak first. You must ask, you must say…
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Living the Life You Didn't Intend
Here was this guy with the big mustache, the big cigar and the silly hat," she recalled in 1982. "I thought, 'I don't know what this is, but it's for me.' "
Read more.
Read more.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Bingo + Tango ...
In Chicago:
14 Tuesday2 BINGO/TANGO
The Museum of Contemporary Art adds an interesting twist to the classic game of bingo by integrating both quirky art and tango components.
Bingo games are based on the shapes of artworks in the museum's collection. Attendees learn to tango with professional Argentine tango dance instructors Somer Surgit and Agape Pappas between games.
The free event will take place at 6 p.m. in Puck's Café; cash bar and light fare available for purchase; mcachicago.org
14 Tuesday2 BINGO/TANGO
The Museum of Contemporary Art adds an interesting twist to the classic game of bingo by integrating both quirky art and tango components.
Bingo games are based on the shapes of artworks in the museum's collection. Attendees learn to tango with professional Argentine tango dance instructors Somer Surgit and Agape Pappas between games.
The free event will take place at 6 p.m. in Puck's Café; cash bar and light fare available for purchase; mcachicago.org
La Milonga Brings Romance and Tango to LA Femme Film Festival
The film is set in 1920's Buenos Aires and was inspired by the era of Carlos Gardel and the rise of Tango. La Milonga tells the story of a young woman who wanders into a Milonga dance hall, and meets the number one Milonguero .... In this stylized and romantic tango film, the two dancers discover a part of themselves previously unknown.
LA Femme Film Festival is a premier festival that focuses on women filmmakers, showcasing their commercial films for the world wide audience.
LA Femme Film Festival is a premier festival that focuses on women filmmakers, showcasing their commercial films for the world wide audience.
Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance
In sad, grim World War I New Zealand, Schmidt, an English piano tuner, taught a local girl to dance:
"They danced around the room, and then when the song he hummed in her ear showed signs of petering out he would dash back to play a few more bars, rekindle his memory, then return to her with the retrieved melody. Back and forth he went between the piano and her. … They danced and danced until the late afternoon shadows spread over the lawn outside."
A tale about finding your place in the world through someone else's storytelling.... Seattle Times
Read reviews at amazon.com and LA Times
"They danced around the room, and then when the song he hummed in her ear showed signs of petering out he would dash back to play a few more bars, rekindle his memory, then return to her with the retrieved melody. Back and forth he went between the piano and her. … They danced and danced until the late afternoon shadows spread over the lawn outside."
A tale about finding your place in the world through someone else's storytelling.... Seattle Times
Read reviews at amazon.com and LA Times
Friday, October 10, 2008
Take That, One Heart, You Bastard!
What would you like to work on today? Grisha asks.
I keep a list. It says things like sacadas and Gustavo turn.
Today I did not consult the list.
Today I hemmed and hawed. Looked out the window. There’s a nice bit of lawn. What I want is so off the wall I don’t really know how to ask. I know what I want, exactly, but I can’t form the words. Several disjointed sentences later, it boils down to this: Self-defense.
Why not?
I have faced what The Mathematician would describe as a philosophical dilemma with practical implications: What to do in the face of leads’ bad behavior?
If a woman joins tango she should expect… a favorite lead begins.
At my protest he backs off. A little.
…she should not be surprised … he concedes.
I think he really still means what he first said. Lots of men—and women--do.
Glenlivet is clear in his thinking: It’s a no-brainer. She shouldn’t expect it, she shouldn’t have to. Men should behave. End of story.
I love it when he talks like that. But I do not live in the world of should. As Keith used to say, with a little less class, you can spit in one hand and wish in the other… and what have you got?
I believe you have something that a guy making advances will probably not like to have wiped on his shirt.
* * *
I have asked Nina many times what to do about men who would rather cuddle than dance. She makes me be the lead. When I squeeze her, she gets big. I don’t know how. She just does.
Today, near the end of the lesson, after we have done sacadas and a clever little adornment that I have failed to practice, Grisha says, What did you want to work on?
First we do Holding Too Tight. I am the lead. He makes himself big. He shows me how. We dance with me big.
Wow! he says. That was the best boleo you’ve ever done! We try it again. Wow-wow! Self-defense and a boleo! Who knew? Things are looking up!
What else? he asks.
I try to explain, but I am nearly incoherent with embarrassment. OK, so what I’m going to do is, I’m going to be the lead and I’m going to give you a sign … earlier today, planning this, I thought I could just say the word “now,” and then he could show me what to do. But here in the moment as my explanation unravels, that seems unlikely to work, so I say I will give you a sign, I will poke you like this—I am holding him like I was the lead, and I jab him in the shoulder blade with my index finger—and then you… you know, you act like you’re me and show me what to do….
I pretend we’re dancing, even though I can’t lead one single step and we are only standing still. I poke him, kind of harder than I was expecting.
He rears back. The look on his face is … Hilarious. Awful. He could be an actor. It is shock and consternation and dislike, even disdain.
That’s great! I say. So I should just look at them like that? That’ll do it? Do I walk away too?
He doesn’t really answer. That look is still on his face. I think we are going to have to try this again.
I am the lead again. Tra-la-la-la-la….POKE!
Grisha pinches the back of my neck. Playfully.
That would never work! I say. They will think I am flirting!
Grisha looks confused.
Why are they poking you? he asks.
No! I say. They are not poking me. I am only poking you because … it’s supposed to be like a surrogate … a signal … You’re supposed to… Now I have worked my way into a corner and a frenzy. Ohmigod! I blurt it out as fast as I can: I am poking you because I am not about to grab your butt.
The look he gives me now is truly amazing.
I think we will dispense with the demo. I explain the problem. We talk it over. No need to repeat the painful details. Here is the upshot:
You walk off. You don’t have to say “Take that, you bastard!” You don’t have to speak at all. You can just go away.
I love that! in theory, but
When I am face-to-face with a fellow human being, I can’t be that way. I can’t think of a time I’ve walked away from someone. I don’t think this is a matter of being a woman. It’s just not in me. I can’t do it.
That’s that.
This is the way I was raised: If you don’t do something well the first time you try it, you never will. Move on. Try something else.
I do not wish to try something else. I wish to stick with tango.
Hmm…
Two years ago, I couldn’t stand up in my tango shoes.
I need practice.
I am going to call Kari.
I keep a list. It says things like sacadas and Gustavo turn.
Today I did not consult the list.
Today I hemmed and hawed. Looked out the window. There’s a nice bit of lawn. What I want is so off the wall I don’t really know how to ask. I know what I want, exactly, but I can’t form the words. Several disjointed sentences later, it boils down to this: Self-defense.
Why not?
I have faced what The Mathematician would describe as a philosophical dilemma with practical implications: What to do in the face of leads’ bad behavior?
If a woman joins tango she should expect… a favorite lead begins.
At my protest he backs off. A little.
…she should not be surprised … he concedes.
I think he really still means what he first said. Lots of men—and women--do.
Glenlivet is clear in his thinking: It’s a no-brainer. She shouldn’t expect it, she shouldn’t have to. Men should behave. End of story.
I love it when he talks like that. But I do not live in the world of should. As Keith used to say, with a little less class, you can spit in one hand and wish in the other… and what have you got?
I believe you have something that a guy making advances will probably not like to have wiped on his shirt.
* * *
I have asked Nina many times what to do about men who would rather cuddle than dance. She makes me be the lead. When I squeeze her, she gets big. I don’t know how. She just does.
Today, near the end of the lesson, after we have done sacadas and a clever little adornment that I have failed to practice, Grisha says, What did you want to work on?
First we do Holding Too Tight. I am the lead. He makes himself big. He shows me how. We dance with me big.
Wow! he says. That was the best boleo you’ve ever done! We try it again. Wow-wow! Self-defense and a boleo! Who knew? Things are looking up!
What else? he asks.
I try to explain, but I am nearly incoherent with embarrassment. OK, so what I’m going to do is, I’m going to be the lead and I’m going to give you a sign … earlier today, planning this, I thought I could just say the word “now,” and then he could show me what to do. But here in the moment as my explanation unravels, that seems unlikely to work, so I say I will give you a sign, I will poke you like this—I am holding him like I was the lead, and I jab him in the shoulder blade with my index finger—and then you… you know, you act like you’re me and show me what to do….
I pretend we’re dancing, even though I can’t lead one single step and we are only standing still. I poke him, kind of harder than I was expecting.
He rears back. The look on his face is … Hilarious. Awful. He could be an actor. It is shock and consternation and dislike, even disdain.
That’s great! I say. So I should just look at them like that? That’ll do it? Do I walk away too?
He doesn’t really answer. That look is still on his face. I think we are going to have to try this again.
I am the lead again. Tra-la-la-la-la….POKE!
Grisha pinches the back of my neck. Playfully.
That would never work! I say. They will think I am flirting!
Grisha looks confused.
Why are they poking you? he asks.
No! I say. They are not poking me. I am only poking you because … it’s supposed to be like a surrogate … a signal … You’re supposed to… Now I have worked my way into a corner and a frenzy. Ohmigod! I blurt it out as fast as I can: I am poking you because I am not about to grab your butt.
The look he gives me now is truly amazing.
I think we will dispense with the demo. I explain the problem. We talk it over. No need to repeat the painful details. Here is the upshot:
You walk off. You don’t have to say “Take that, you bastard!” You don’t have to speak at all. You can just go away.
I love that! in theory, but
When I am face-to-face with a fellow human being, I can’t be that way. I can’t think of a time I’ve walked away from someone. I don’t think this is a matter of being a woman. It’s just not in me. I can’t do it.
That’s that.
This is the way I was raised: If you don’t do something well the first time you try it, you never will. Move on. Try something else.
I do not wish to try something else. I wish to stick with tango.
Hmm…
Two years ago, I couldn’t stand up in my tango shoes.
I need practice.
I am going to call Kari.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
MoveOn.ohd
He apologized. I accepted.
We move on.
* * *
Keith has taken flight off a few roofs. He used to install and repair solar systems; falling is a job hazard. The trick, he said, is to control the landing.
Long after he stopped doing solar, he had his worst fall. He broke his left side. Ribs, hip. His wrist was destroyed.
For an artist to lose a hand is
There are no words for that.
Keith was lucky; a renowned hand surgeon was in the emergency room that day. He (Lewis Oster, Superdoc!) saved Keith’s wrist. It took most of a day of surgery and many casts and visits to the doctor. After months the wrist would not heal; the bones and joint had been ground to sand and gravel, and the pieces would not grow back together. The surgeon was shaking his head. Sooner or later, the cast would have to come off and that would be that.
As a last-ditch effort, Keith let me try visualization. I had never really done it before. I pictured the bits and pieces as ice floes, drifting together, melding. It worked! It was lucky for Keith that it did. For me, it was holy.
Everyone celebrated. Whoo-hoo!
When Keith felt his solid in his bones again, we went to breakfast at a truck stop diner, our favorite treat.
Next to the cash register was a box of buttons, the kind you wear on your lapel. We laughed at one, but the laughter cut at my heart.
Not Keith. He liked it! I saw only the first words. Keith saw the whole, larger truth.
Keith carried the button around. He showed it to all of his buddies. One day he stuck it to the refrigerator door with a magnet. Finally, he affixed it to the top of his toolbox, the one that sits front and center on his workbench.
In plain black letters on a white background it said:
I FALL DOWN, I GET UP
* * *
In a lesson several weeks ago, Grisha stopped between dances. This is when he explains what part of me is out of whack.
Your embrace feels different, he said …
approvingly.
!!!
Finally, finally! After two years I have finally managed to line up wings and center and axis and balance and all the rest of it. Finally, I know I will make the dancer I know I can be. It has been a mystery to me why I could not catch on. All of my littermates progressed much faster than me.
I am a renowned klutz. No one who knows me can believe I would ever make a dancer. They think it’s adorable that I want to try, like a duck that wants to pull a wagon. But I have always known with certainty that it is in me … if I could only master the body mechanics, if I could stick with it until I get over that hump …
Now I am mystified. I know I am a much better dancer. It happened suddenly, without cause. What clicked? I don’t know.
It feels like you trust me, he added.
* * *
The night before the Harvest Moon milonga, Stan was happier with our dancing than he has ever been. He was beaming. I was mystified. What was different? He tried to explain. Writing this now, I think I know: It feels like you trust me.
Yes, well …
Nothing personal, GrishaGlenlivetStanTomAndreyMr.Mathematician, I’m just stepping it back a bit. I may have advanced prematurely. The landscape looks different from what I expected. I need to regroup.
* * *
I am not running for the exit. Kari would laugh if I said I were. I have said it too often already. I am not running. I am edging toward the back row.
At the Mercury Cafe, you must climb several steps to get to the back rows of tables and chairs. It is quiet and shadowy. You are practically invisible; no one comes looking for a partner up there. You can enjoy the music and let your mind wander or chat with someone who is taking a break from the dancing. It is almost like being in the time-out chair, which is a lovely place for a daydreamer.
Like so much of the Merc, it’s a metaphor. I have a place like that inside myself. I think I might hang there for a while. I don’t want to stop dancing. I am making progress and I don’t want to lose it. Still, I think I’ll let technique front for me for a while. I think I can get away with that for a while.
It is not forever. I have learned to trust the tango cycle: It knocks me down, in a little while I get up.
* * *
It takes a big person to apologize simply. Add that to the mix, to keep all this honest.
I make up the nicknames for people in this blog. I could call this guy something vulgar, but I won’t, not based on this one incident.
No person is all one thing or another. He had a moment. If he has another, I will hear about it and I will gather a posse and we will push him through the brick wall, and you can read all about it here, including his name. Meanwhile, I am turning my attention to fences.
Mending fences is hard. Someone has to be willing to hold the nail while the other wields the hammer. You have to trust and you have to be wary. You have to be present, like a Zen monk washing the dishes.
It takes two to mend a fence.
He and I? No.
The fence metaphor refers to a shared border. In geography you can’t choose who shares your border; in tango you can. The fence I am mending is the border I share with The Five and my teacher. It is trust. They are not responsible for damaging the fence, but they will help me repair it.
To be honest, I’m not all that enamored of trust. If I had known that’s what tango is all about, I would not have come near it. Too late now. I am enchanted.
There is a commercial for a phone service. A geek holds a cell phone. He walks two steps and says, “Can you hear me now?” Every two steps he asks, “Can you hear me now?"
I danced like that geek. Every two steps I was asking, Are you going to hurt me? Are you going to hurt me now?
By “hurt,” I don’t mean slap me. I mean "do me harm." I really was asking: Can I trust you? Can I trust you now?
I danced with a doomed man’s bravado. I never anticipated the answer would be yes, but over time I got used to it: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. With every step it is Yes.
Well … not every step. There are missteps, criticism, innuendoes, advances …
Oh!
As it turns out, there is a corollary to the question, Can I trust you?
The corollary is this: Are you going to throw something at me that I can’t handle?
And the corollary to that question is: Can I trust me to handle what comes my way?
Most of the time … in my own time … the answer is Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Now when I dance with someone I trust, I own my space. When I come into the embrace, I am there. I am grounded in a conditional faith in certainty—trust.
I am not stupid. I know this is, like, you know, all about life. But life is big. I like to take it in small doses. One tanda, one dance at a time.
And that’s how The Five and my teacher and I will mend the fence. They won’t have to do much; this is my work to do. I trust me to do it; I have done it before.
But this is not only about me, Glenlivet points out.
As a social dance, tango can only exist within the safe space created by shared assumptions about—and insistence upon--right behavior. A major role of Tango Colorado is to propagate the culture that preserves the safe space.
When someone violates behavioral norms, Glenlivet says, it damages the fabric of the community. Like it or not, One Heart owes it to the community to do something about it.
Eeek! Really?
He’s not going to give ground on this. I can tell.
Trust is not merely a one-on-one thing. It is, itself, the fabric of community. Thus, trust can’t trickle down; it can only ripple out. Private actions have public effects. I am extrapolating to the moon, and maybe I am getting it all wrong, but I am trusting you on this, Glenlivet.
So
I will turn my attention to the mending of fences until trust grows like wisteria, until you cannot tell where any fence is, exactly, and the twining vine cannot be contained but spills over, wending through the community, reweaving the fabric by its own verdant will.
Good people fall down. They get up.
We move on.
We move on.
* * *
Keith has taken flight off a few roofs. He used to install and repair solar systems; falling is a job hazard. The trick, he said, is to control the landing.
Long after he stopped doing solar, he had his worst fall. He broke his left side. Ribs, hip. His wrist was destroyed.
For an artist to lose a hand is
There are no words for that.
Keith was lucky; a renowned hand surgeon was in the emergency room that day. He (Lewis Oster, Superdoc!) saved Keith’s wrist. It took most of a day of surgery and many casts and visits to the doctor. After months the wrist would not heal; the bones and joint had been ground to sand and gravel, and the pieces would not grow back together. The surgeon was shaking his head. Sooner or later, the cast would have to come off and that would be that.
As a last-ditch effort, Keith let me try visualization. I had never really done it before. I pictured the bits and pieces as ice floes, drifting together, melding. It worked! It was lucky for Keith that it did. For me, it was holy.
Everyone celebrated. Whoo-hoo!
When Keith felt his solid in his bones again, we went to breakfast at a truck stop diner, our favorite treat.
Next to the cash register was a box of buttons, the kind you wear on your lapel. We laughed at one, but the laughter cut at my heart.
Not Keith. He liked it! I saw only the first words. Keith saw the whole, larger truth.
Keith carried the button around. He showed it to all of his buddies. One day he stuck it to the refrigerator door with a magnet. Finally, he affixed it to the top of his toolbox, the one that sits front and center on his workbench.
In plain black letters on a white background it said:
I FALL DOWN, I GET UP
* * *
In a lesson several weeks ago, Grisha stopped between dances. This is when he explains what part of me is out of whack.
Your embrace feels different, he said …
approvingly.
!!!
Finally, finally! After two years I have finally managed to line up wings and center and axis and balance and all the rest of it. Finally, I know I will make the dancer I know I can be. It has been a mystery to me why I could not catch on. All of my littermates progressed much faster than me.
I am a renowned klutz. No one who knows me can believe I would ever make a dancer. They think it’s adorable that I want to try, like a duck that wants to pull a wagon. But I have always known with certainty that it is in me … if I could only master the body mechanics, if I could stick with it until I get over that hump …
Now I am mystified. I know I am a much better dancer. It happened suddenly, without cause. What clicked? I don’t know.
It feels like you trust me, he added.
* * *
The night before the Harvest Moon milonga, Stan was happier with our dancing than he has ever been. He was beaming. I was mystified. What was different? He tried to explain. Writing this now, I think I know: It feels like you trust me.
Yes, well …
Nothing personal, GrishaGlenlivetStanTomAndreyMr.Mathematician, I’m just stepping it back a bit. I may have advanced prematurely. The landscape looks different from what I expected. I need to regroup.
* * *
I am not running for the exit. Kari would laugh if I said I were. I have said it too often already. I am not running. I am edging toward the back row.
At the Mercury Cafe, you must climb several steps to get to the back rows of tables and chairs. It is quiet and shadowy. You are practically invisible; no one comes looking for a partner up there. You can enjoy the music and let your mind wander or chat with someone who is taking a break from the dancing. It is almost like being in the time-out chair, which is a lovely place for a daydreamer.
Like so much of the Merc, it’s a metaphor. I have a place like that inside myself. I think I might hang there for a while. I don’t want to stop dancing. I am making progress and I don’t want to lose it. Still, I think I’ll let technique front for me for a while. I think I can get away with that for a while.
It is not forever. I have learned to trust the tango cycle: It knocks me down, in a little while I get up.
* * *
It takes a big person to apologize simply. Add that to the mix, to keep all this honest.
I make up the nicknames for people in this blog. I could call this guy something vulgar, but I won’t, not based on this one incident.
No person is all one thing or another. He had a moment. If he has another, I will hear about it and I will gather a posse and we will push him through the brick wall, and you can read all about it here, including his name. Meanwhile, I am turning my attention to fences.
Mending fences is hard. Someone has to be willing to hold the nail while the other wields the hammer. You have to trust and you have to be wary. You have to be present, like a Zen monk washing the dishes.
It takes two to mend a fence.
He and I? No.
The fence metaphor refers to a shared border. In geography you can’t choose who shares your border; in tango you can. The fence I am mending is the border I share with The Five and my teacher. It is trust. They are not responsible for damaging the fence, but they will help me repair it.
To be honest, I’m not all that enamored of trust. If I had known that’s what tango is all about, I would not have come near it. Too late now. I am enchanted.
There is a commercial for a phone service. A geek holds a cell phone. He walks two steps and says, “Can you hear me now?” Every two steps he asks, “Can you hear me now?"
I danced like that geek. Every two steps I was asking, Are you going to hurt me? Are you going to hurt me now?
By “hurt,” I don’t mean slap me. I mean "do me harm." I really was asking: Can I trust you? Can I trust you now?
I danced with a doomed man’s bravado. I never anticipated the answer would be yes, but over time I got used to it: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. With every step it is Yes.
Well … not every step. There are missteps, criticism, innuendoes, advances …
Oh!
As it turns out, there is a corollary to the question, Can I trust you?
The corollary is this: Are you going to throw something at me that I can’t handle?
And the corollary to that question is: Can I trust me to handle what comes my way?
Most of the time … in my own time … the answer is Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Now when I dance with someone I trust, I own my space. When I come into the embrace, I am there. I am grounded in a conditional faith in certainty—trust.
I am not stupid. I know this is, like, you know, all about life. But life is big. I like to take it in small doses. One tanda, one dance at a time.
And that’s how The Five and my teacher and I will mend the fence. They won’t have to do much; this is my work to do. I trust me to do it; I have done it before.
But this is not only about me, Glenlivet points out.
As a social dance, tango can only exist within the safe space created by shared assumptions about—and insistence upon--right behavior. A major role of Tango Colorado is to propagate the culture that preserves the safe space.
When someone violates behavioral norms, Glenlivet says, it damages the fabric of the community. Like it or not, One Heart owes it to the community to do something about it.
Eeek! Really?
He’s not going to give ground on this. I can tell.
Trust is not merely a one-on-one thing. It is, itself, the fabric of community. Thus, trust can’t trickle down; it can only ripple out. Private actions have public effects. I am extrapolating to the moon, and maybe I am getting it all wrong, but I am trusting you on this, Glenlivet.
So
I will turn my attention to the mending of fences until trust grows like wisteria, until you cannot tell where any fence is, exactly, and the twining vine cannot be contained but spills over, wending through the community, reweaving the fabric by its own verdant will.
Good people fall down. They get up.
We move on.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Cocooned
It’s Tuesday night, and what could be more appealing than to spend the night cocooned? No need to go back to the Turn so soon. It will be there next week.
My apartment is especially beautiful at night, the windows black mirrors, the wooden floor glowing in the lamp’s small light.
I have homework from Grisha to practice for Friday’s lesson. Last night, Joe ran me through his version of Eleven Perfect Steps, and there’s work to be done there as well.
I have my DiSarli CD. That is the music for a night like tonight. Everything is inviting.
But.
I am in the midst of a story that is unfolding simultaneously in the blog and in life. I didn’t choose the story, but I have chosen to tell it. To continue to tell it, I must continue to live it…
What the heck, I must continue to live it regardless. You can walk off the floor mid-tanda; you can’t walk away from your own true story.
So tonight I do not cocoon myself in a dancing meditation.
I go back to tango.
* * *
Costume can be disguise or armor.
When I started tango, I often wore long-sleeved, turtleneck tops. Armor.
Tonight I need something very covered up, but subtly so, in a way that will not betray that I am running scared. Disguise.
Costume is its own kind of cocoon.
* * *
I like the spare, severe lines of tight pants.
Pants make a woman look too powerful for tango. Some men interpret that costume to mean she wants to wear the pants in the dance. So I am told.
Pants do not make me look powerful, except in the way that the stem is stronger than the blossom of a flower. That is how tight pants make me be. When I am wearing tight pants, the whole length of me is one piece, flexible and strong and free. Resilient.
When I am wearing tight pants I feel my legs extend strong from my hip sockets down into the earth, eight inches or more below the surface. I am the stem, I terminate in roots. The earth feeds me power, my body gives it back. This is grounded.
The walking trees of Tolkein do not tear their roots free and replant them at every step; their roots remain buried even as they walk. This is grounded.
I love to follow.
I don’t want to own power, I want it to flow through me.
I want to be that strong.
* * *
Tonight I need a costume that makes me feel self
-contained. Covered up,
strong. Something that says I,
myself can hold my own.
Not because a lead is
taking care of me. Because
I am taking care of myself.
Covered up but not
timid. Tonight
I need a costume that holds everyone
yet at arm’s length, says,
My strength can match
any of you, bring it
on and on and-and …
on.
** *
The thick, winter-weight pants. The long-sleeved t-shirt over sturdy lingerie.
Covered up but not timid. The t-shirt is sheer black over a solid black camisole. The lingerie is hot pink, only the strap whispering Psst! from behind the cami and t-shirt, an accessory to match the Chinese character scrawled on the front of the shirt.
What does the character say?
Various leads have made guesses. It’s a game to play between dances. On any given night, any guess can be right. Tonight I choose Rick Moss’s best guess:
Biker Bitch.
Covered up but not timid. The whole thing fits like a stem's epidermis.
* * *
And the Comme il Faut’s with the spike heels.
And the earring, a three-inch saw blade resected from the eviscerated belly of a Swiss Army knife. It can draw blood.
Just in case.
* * *
To those who are not captivated by the surfaces of things, a costume can be quite revealing.
* * *
Each of us has to live our life story. It helps to take it in small doses.
I arrive midway through the evening. It has been my technique. I arrive in time to work the desk, and by the time my shift is up, I am acclimated to the scene and can dance.
Tonight I arrive earlier than usual, in time for the community dance. It is my new tango practice: Dance with strangers. Working with shyness is like taming a horse. Sometimes you have to back off, and sometimes you just have to make it do what you want it to do.
The community dance is set up to create a random mix of partners, each dance interval lasting as long as the lead likes it to last.
I am lucky! My first partner is Nick Jones, with whom I have just had my first private lesson. He whips us into an off-balance turn, the kind he is going to teach this weekend in a workshop titled “Turn ‘Til you Puke,” with Luiza Paes.
I am signing up for that workshop!
My next draw is lucky, too: The Mathematician! What are the odds? The Tragedy of Tuesdays is that he practices all night with a classmate; this brief community dance is the only chance I will have to dance with him. He makes the dance last a lovely long time. Lucky!
OK. That’s enough bravery. I do not trust my luck to hold.
I scurry to the lobby, work my shift at the welcome desk. For the rest of the night, despite the rules against dancing more than one tanda, I take shelter in my practice partner’s safe, familiar, safely familiar embrace.
My apartment is especially beautiful at night, the windows black mirrors, the wooden floor glowing in the lamp’s small light.
I have homework from Grisha to practice for Friday’s lesson. Last night, Joe ran me through his version of Eleven Perfect Steps, and there’s work to be done there as well.
I have my DiSarli CD. That is the music for a night like tonight. Everything is inviting.
But.
I am in the midst of a story that is unfolding simultaneously in the blog and in life. I didn’t choose the story, but I have chosen to tell it. To continue to tell it, I must continue to live it…
What the heck, I must continue to live it regardless. You can walk off the floor mid-tanda; you can’t walk away from your own true story.
So tonight I do not cocoon myself in a dancing meditation.
I go back to tango.
* * *
Costume can be disguise or armor.
When I started tango, I often wore long-sleeved, turtleneck tops. Armor.
Tonight I need something very covered up, but subtly so, in a way that will not betray that I am running scared. Disguise.
Costume is its own kind of cocoon.
* * *
I like the spare, severe lines of tight pants.
Pants make a woman look too powerful for tango. Some men interpret that costume to mean she wants to wear the pants in the dance. So I am told.
Pants do not make me look powerful, except in the way that the stem is stronger than the blossom of a flower. That is how tight pants make me be. When I am wearing tight pants, the whole length of me is one piece, flexible and strong and free. Resilient.
When I am wearing tight pants I feel my legs extend strong from my hip sockets down into the earth, eight inches or more below the surface. I am the stem, I terminate in roots. The earth feeds me power, my body gives it back. This is grounded.
The walking trees of Tolkein do not tear their roots free and replant them at every step; their roots remain buried even as they walk. This is grounded.
I love to follow.
I don’t want to own power, I want it to flow through me.
I want to be that strong.
* * *
Tonight I need a costume that makes me feel self
-contained. Covered up,
strong. Something that says I,
myself can hold my own.
Not because a lead is
taking care of me. Because
I am taking care of myself.
Covered up but not
timid. Tonight
I need a costume that holds everyone
yet at arm’s length, says,
My strength can match
any of you, bring it
on and on and-and …
on.
** *
The thick, winter-weight pants. The long-sleeved t-shirt over sturdy lingerie.
Covered up but not timid. The t-shirt is sheer black over a solid black camisole. The lingerie is hot pink, only the strap whispering Psst! from behind the cami and t-shirt, an accessory to match the Chinese character scrawled on the front of the shirt.
What does the character say?
Various leads have made guesses. It’s a game to play between dances. On any given night, any guess can be right. Tonight I choose Rick Moss’s best guess:
Biker Bitch.
Covered up but not timid. The whole thing fits like a stem's epidermis.
* * *
And the Comme il Faut’s with the spike heels.
And the earring, a three-inch saw blade resected from the eviscerated belly of a Swiss Army knife. It can draw blood.
Just in case.
* * *
To those who are not captivated by the surfaces of things, a costume can be quite revealing.
* * *
Each of us has to live our life story. It helps to take it in small doses.
I arrive midway through the evening. It has been my technique. I arrive in time to work the desk, and by the time my shift is up, I am acclimated to the scene and can dance.
Tonight I arrive earlier than usual, in time for the community dance. It is my new tango practice: Dance with strangers. Working with shyness is like taming a horse. Sometimes you have to back off, and sometimes you just have to make it do what you want it to do.
The community dance is set up to create a random mix of partners, each dance interval lasting as long as the lead likes it to last.
I am lucky! My first partner is Nick Jones, with whom I have just had my first private lesson. He whips us into an off-balance turn, the kind he is going to teach this weekend in a workshop titled “Turn ‘Til you Puke,” with Luiza Paes.
I am signing up for that workshop!
My next draw is lucky, too: The Mathematician! What are the odds? The Tragedy of Tuesdays is that he practices all night with a classmate; this brief community dance is the only chance I will have to dance with him. He makes the dance last a lovely long time. Lucky!
OK. That’s enough bravery. I do not trust my luck to hold.
I scurry to the lobby, work my shift at the welcome desk. For the rest of the night, despite the rules against dancing more than one tanda, I take shelter in my practice partner’s safe, familiar, safely familiar embrace.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Miss Tango Manners Is That a Hand on My ...?
Dear Miss Tango Manners:
I can't decide whether to cry or kick someone.
Last night at the Tango Colorado Harvest Moon milonga, I was dancing with a lead who made advances. [Material deleted. All letters are edited for space, tone, and decency.]
Eek!
I almost walked off the dance floor—but that would be bad manners, wouldn’t it?
What drove him to this? Was he carried away by the music? I was wearing a dress. The neckline is only a little immodest and I cannot imagine the sight of my bony chest where cleavage belongs incited such action. What am I doing wrong?
I made a beeline for the exit. I was nearly out the door when ... [Material deleted. All letters are edited, etc.] ... and I'll put him through a fucking brick wall," Glenlivet said. Something like that.
So I didn't run. For the leads who knowingly or not helped me settle down, I still have stars in my eyes. I danced all night, and my feet are feeling the happy effects.
Sincerely,
One Heart Dancing
* * *
Dear One Heart Dancing:
My dear, your letter disturbs me.
When a lead takes liberties reserved for a lover, assuming of course, that he is not your lover, he is mostly likely not carried away. He is most likely suffering a willful lack of self-control.
You must think of him as the freckle-faced boy in third grade who was caught looking up the teacher’s skirt. Did she make allowances, knowing as she must, false modesty aside, that her mellifluous voice surely drives young boys to distraction--even as it does the endless string of men whom she has wrapped around her little finger until it aches from their combined weight--as she read the answers to the spelling test? Did she draw on the wisdom of Freud, Jung, Wittgenstein to weigh the influence of his idcollectiveunconsciouszeitgeist? Did she spare his feelings?
No! She smacked him with a ruler and sent a note home to his mother.
You must be that lead’s teacher.
Miss Tango Manners concedes that it is unlikely you will have a ruler ready to hand as you are on the dance floor. This does not preclude hiding, in the belt of your dress, a flexible willow switch or perhaps a slim leather whip tastefully dyed to match your shoes with a fair-sized stone tied at the end of the lash, something sparkly with facets.
Similarly, it is unlikely you will succeed in contacting this lead’s mother. This does not preclude you from alerting every follower in Tango Colorado to his behavior. Forewarned is forearmed. (Bulk orders 15% off. Discreet shipping $10 per address. Order from iTangoWhip.com.*)
One Heart, you beseech me to tell you in what ways your dress or your you-ness are to blame for this debacle. I believe that you know. You are a wimp. When you adopt that stance with a bad-mannered lead, you are playing into his hand. So to speak, crudely.
You must stop this Eek!ing business. It is time to grow up.
When a lead makes advances upon your body, you must reveal to him a part of your anatomy he may never have seen before: your backbone.
You must resist the urge to think. You’ll only flummox yourself as you second-guess or make excuses for bad behavior. Actions speak loudly. Listen.
Similarly, with your actions enunciate. There is no need to make excuses for dancing in the embrace that is most comfortable for you. Soft-pedaling opens the door to the Wiggle Room. Though Miss Tango Manners generally decries the slamming of doors, in this case she grants an exemption.
Practice saying No. A worldly woman requires a wardrobe of No’s as large as her collection of tango costumes. (As in: I don’t like it when you… or Please stop … or It is hard on my back when you… or That’s uncomfortable for me.) It would behoove you, One Heart, to turn your attention from your manner of dress to your form of address. Your time and talent are best spent fashioning for yourself a veritable wardrobe of ways to say No.
Include in your wardrobe nonverbal refusals, for example, the adornment Graciela Gonzalez demonstrated in Las Vegas. It’s a simple matter of timing and the correct height of the knee.
Work on your technique for walking off the floor. It is part of the wardrobe of No, as fully justified as the hot-pink, fits-like-paint, fringed minidress in your tango closet. Such options are not suitable for everyday use, but one must admit they serve their respective purposes.
Allow me to remind you, One Heart, as you have a tendency to blame yourself for the vagaries of others (which is, let us admit, a pathetic yet amusing attempt to usurp responsibility for their actions and hence claim for yourself the power to control every situation):
The failure here is not of control but of self-control. The failure is not yours.
To put it simply: Your dress is not the culprit.
To put it crudely: It is not the dress that grabbed your ass.
And now, pursuant to the comments deleted from your note (all letters are edited for space, etc.):
Bestow a chaste kiss on the cheek of the jaguar. A beast who frees the mermaid from her earthly prison has earned a boon. Take care to avoid bestowing upon him the fabled kiss that drives men to dash into the sea. It would be quite a long dash from Denver. The other followers will not appreciate the loss of this charming lead.
As your knight in shining armor, Glenlivet would undoubtedly appreciate some token of the lady’s appreciation. In the days of jousts and quests, ladies would gift their champion with a scrap of fabric. That seems a paltry gift. Miss Tango Manners suggests an invitation to coffee.
Now we come to the difficult case. Apparently, Stan has miraculous healing powers. Did not another follower marvel to you on Friday night that the pain in her foot, which had been plaguing her for some time, vanished as she danced with Stan? And did she not confide that the effect was long-lasting … though perhaps beginning to wear off … and perhaps she would need dances periodically throughout the evening to keep the pain at bay?
When one’s contribution is made by nature rather than effort, no thank-you gift is required. The idea of leaving gifts to nature is out of vogue, notwithstanding the cigarettes and gin that, to this day, some tourists leave(and others shamefully scavenge) at the rim of Halemaumau in place of the virgins that were never really sacrificed there.
No. For Stan, Miss Tango Manners must insist that gin and cigarettes and dead virgins are out of the question. Better to offer a gift he can use: 4 hours of practice on Monday. Perhaps you could use this time to perfect Graciela’s adornment.
Best regards,
Miss Tango Manners
*Gotcha!
I can't decide whether to cry or kick someone.
Last night at the Tango Colorado Harvest Moon milonga, I was dancing with a lead who made advances. [Material deleted. All letters are edited for space, tone, and decency.]
Eek!
I almost walked off the dance floor—but that would be bad manners, wouldn’t it?
What drove him to this? Was he carried away by the music? I was wearing a dress. The neckline is only a little immodest and I cannot imagine the sight of my bony chest where cleavage belongs incited such action. What am I doing wrong?
I made a beeline for the exit. I was nearly out the door when ... [Material deleted. All letters are edited, etc.] ... and I'll put him through a fucking brick wall," Glenlivet said. Something like that.
So I didn't run. For the leads who knowingly or not helped me settle down, I still have stars in my eyes. I danced all night, and my feet are feeling the happy effects.
Sincerely,
One Heart Dancing
* * *
Dear One Heart Dancing:
My dear, your letter disturbs me.
When a lead takes liberties reserved for a lover, assuming of course, that he is not your lover, he is mostly likely not carried away. He is most likely suffering a willful lack of self-control.
You must think of him as the freckle-faced boy in third grade who was caught looking up the teacher’s skirt. Did she make allowances, knowing as she must, false modesty aside, that her mellifluous voice surely drives young boys to distraction--even as it does the endless string of men whom she has wrapped around her little finger until it aches from their combined weight--as she read the answers to the spelling test? Did she draw on the wisdom of Freud, Jung, Wittgenstein to weigh the influence of his idcollectiveunconsciouszeitgeist? Did she spare his feelings?
No! She smacked him with a ruler and sent a note home to his mother.
You must be that lead’s teacher.
Miss Tango Manners concedes that it is unlikely you will have a ruler ready to hand as you are on the dance floor. This does not preclude hiding, in the belt of your dress, a flexible willow switch or perhaps a slim leather whip tastefully dyed to match your shoes with a fair-sized stone tied at the end of the lash, something sparkly with facets.
Similarly, it is unlikely you will succeed in contacting this lead’s mother. This does not preclude you from alerting every follower in Tango Colorado to his behavior. Forewarned is forearmed. (Bulk orders 15% off. Discreet shipping $10 per address. Order from iTangoWhip.com.*)
One Heart, you beseech me to tell you in what ways your dress or your you-ness are to blame for this debacle. I believe that you know. You are a wimp. When you adopt that stance with a bad-mannered lead, you are playing into his hand. So to speak, crudely.
You must stop this Eek!ing business. It is time to grow up.
When a lead makes advances upon your body, you must reveal to him a part of your anatomy he may never have seen before: your backbone.
You must resist the urge to think. You’ll only flummox yourself as you second-guess or make excuses for bad behavior. Actions speak loudly. Listen.
Similarly, with your actions enunciate. There is no need to make excuses for dancing in the embrace that is most comfortable for you. Soft-pedaling opens the door to the Wiggle Room. Though Miss Tango Manners generally decries the slamming of doors, in this case she grants an exemption.
Practice saying No. A worldly woman requires a wardrobe of No’s as large as her collection of tango costumes. (As in: I don’t like it when you… or Please stop … or It is hard on my back when you… or That’s uncomfortable for me.) It would behoove you, One Heart, to turn your attention from your manner of dress to your form of address. Your time and talent are best spent fashioning for yourself a veritable wardrobe of ways to say No.
Include in your wardrobe nonverbal refusals, for example, the adornment Graciela Gonzalez demonstrated in Las Vegas. It’s a simple matter of timing and the correct height of the knee.
Work on your technique for walking off the floor. It is part of the wardrobe of No, as fully justified as the hot-pink, fits-like-paint, fringed minidress in your tango closet. Such options are not suitable for everyday use, but one must admit they serve their respective purposes.
Allow me to remind you, One Heart, as you have a tendency to blame yourself for the vagaries of others (which is, let us admit, a pathetic yet amusing attempt to usurp responsibility for their actions and hence claim for yourself the power to control every situation):
The failure here is not of control but of self-control. The failure is not yours.
To put it simply: Your dress is not the culprit.
To put it crudely: It is not the dress that grabbed your ass.
And now, pursuant to the comments deleted from your note (all letters are edited for space, etc.):
Bestow a chaste kiss on the cheek of the jaguar. A beast who frees the mermaid from her earthly prison has earned a boon. Take care to avoid bestowing upon him the fabled kiss that drives men to dash into the sea. It would be quite a long dash from Denver. The other followers will not appreciate the loss of this charming lead.
As your knight in shining armor, Glenlivet would undoubtedly appreciate some token of the lady’s appreciation. In the days of jousts and quests, ladies would gift their champion with a scrap of fabric. That seems a paltry gift. Miss Tango Manners suggests an invitation to coffee.
Now we come to the difficult case. Apparently, Stan has miraculous healing powers. Did not another follower marvel to you on Friday night that the pain in her foot, which had been plaguing her for some time, vanished as she danced with Stan? And did she not confide that the effect was long-lasting … though perhaps beginning to wear off … and perhaps she would need dances periodically throughout the evening to keep the pain at bay?
When one’s contribution is made by nature rather than effort, no thank-you gift is required. The idea of leaving gifts to nature is out of vogue, notwithstanding the cigarettes and gin that, to this day, some tourists leave(and others shamefully scavenge) at the rim of Halemaumau in place of the virgins that were never really sacrificed there.
No. For Stan, Miss Tango Manners must insist that gin and cigarettes and dead virgins are out of the question. Better to offer a gift he can use: 4 hours of practice on Monday. Perhaps you could use this time to perfect Graciela’s adornment.
Best regards,
Miss Tango Manners
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