Killing a few moments, I am skimming a book called The Must Words, essential words for your vocabulary.
Here's a game: look for words that are essential to me.
Love.
Scanning the list, we come to Lout
Love should be next
In its place:
LSD.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Personal Highlights from the Denver Labor Day Festival
Cool moves. A favorite lead tries out a new move involving interminable suspense, syncopation, off-axis work and a perfect landing. Very cool!
Martin and Shaun, dancing together. She is the princess, dreaming in his arms. He is the prince, taking care not to wake her. They float in a bubble of enchantment, a magic of their own making.
The best cabaceo ever. A buddy looks at me. I nod. He nods back. I nod again. He stands. The woman sitting between us stands, too. I twinge for her. Just two days ago, I was where she is right now; it is deathly embarrassing. But not for her, not this time. My buddy takes her hand as if that were exactly his intent. As she precedes him to the dance floor, he tosses a half-apologetic smile over his shoulder. Then he turns his attention fully to her. They are dancing, completely connected. Yes! This is all the best that tango can be.
Martin and Shaun, dancing together. She is the princess, dreaming in his arms. He is the prince, taking care not to wake her. They float in a bubble of enchantment, a magic of their own making.
The best cabaceo ever. A buddy looks at me. I nod. He nods back. I nod again. He stands. The woman sitting between us stands, too. I twinge for her. Just two days ago, I was where she is right now; it is deathly embarrassing. But not for her, not this time. My buddy takes her hand as if that were exactly his intent. As she precedes him to the dance floor, he tosses a half-apologetic smile over his shoulder. Then he turns his attention fully to her. They are dancing, completely connected. Yes! This is all the best that tango can be.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Elegant Milonga
A young girl, maybe 10, a stuffed animal in the crook of her arm, walks by the ballroom with her mother. They stop to peer in.
“Go ahead,” I tell them. “It costs nothing to watch.”
The mother strides through the door, the girl hangs back. Her face is alight, her body is tilting toward the door. I recognize that: She is a dancer!
“It’s OK, take a look,” I encourage her. “You might decide to take it up.”
She won’t cross the threshold. She leans in for a quick look. Ricochets out. Looks at me half-accusing. I recognize that, too: That is “Eek!”
This is scotch-and-cigarettes dancing; she has only kissed her first boy.
“Ten years from now,” I tell her. She lets that sink in. The shine returns to her eyes.
Ten years from now: a safe distance, another whole lifetime for her. Then she will be Grown Up.
When she is a Grown Up, she will do many sophisticated things. Drink and smoke cigarettes. Drive a car. Hold a job. All those things that men and women do in the movies.
But that is far in the future; she need not go there now.
Now she steps into the ballroom, stands close to her mom. She is looking to the future, holding tight to her doll.
“Go ahead,” I tell them. “It costs nothing to watch.”
The mother strides through the door, the girl hangs back. Her face is alight, her body is tilting toward the door. I recognize that: She is a dancer!
“It’s OK, take a look,” I encourage her. “You might decide to take it up.”
She won’t cross the threshold. She leans in for a quick look. Ricochets out. Looks at me half-accusing. I recognize that, too: That is “Eek!”
This is scotch-and-cigarettes dancing; she has only kissed her first boy.
“Ten years from now,” I tell her. She lets that sink in. The shine returns to her eyes.
Ten years from now: a safe distance, another whole lifetime for her. Then she will be Grown Up.
When she is a Grown Up, she will do many sophisticated things. Drink and smoke cigarettes. Drive a car. Hold a job. All those things that men and women do in the movies.
But that is far in the future; she need not go there now.
Now she steps into the ballroom, stands close to her mom. She is looking to the future, holding tight to her doll.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Turn Off That Dad-Gum Music! We're Trying to Drink!
From the Buffalo, Wyoming, Bulletin: August 29, 1907
The Casper city council has ordered that there shall be no more music in the saloons in that town. The order, we are told, was made at the request of many people. It was argued that when they were having a social drink they could not drink and keep time with the music, and often times they would have to forego their beverage and dance to the sweet strains from the piano and violin, and they did not want it that way, and hence the order of the town council.
The Casper city council has ordered that there shall be no more music in the saloons in that town. The order, we are told, was made at the request of many people. It was argued that when they were having a social drink they could not drink and keep time with the music, and often times they would have to forego their beverage and dance to the sweet strains from the piano and violin, and they did not want it that way, and hence the order of the town council.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
A Dozen Memorable Moments of the Labor Day Tango Festival
12. No one beats Jimi. At the alternative milonga, at the end of a particularly screechy tune, Stan steps back. He is nearly limp; his grin is huge. I believe he has just experienced the Tango Trace. “That was the dance of the festival,” he sighs. I preen. “Jimi Hendrix,” he marvels. “I love Jimi Hendrix.”
11. Campy and hot. Dancing in fedora and shades. Today, suave-and-sweet is dark and dangerous, too. Excuse me now, I need to go swoon.
10. Getting a clue. Barbara Durr’s hilarious pantomime of a cabaceo-clueless woman, who will never get a dance at a milonga. Hey, wait a minute! She looks like me!
9. Tango music trance. A woman openly weeping at the deep, holy beauty of the last song of Grisha’s musicality class. As we applaud she hurries to the back of the room, wiping her face with both hands.
8. A new adornment. After two months of tweaking and practicing a new adornment that one of my teachers doubted I could pull off, slipping it into a dance with Stan and then Jane—and they like it!
7. Being Cinderella. Kathleen and Mary Alice fussing over me like Cinderella, altering my dress, poring over an extensive collection of jewelry, choosing the earrings, bickering over the necklace, advising on hairdo, teasing, and assuring me that yes, the outfit looks as beautiful as it makes me feel.
6. A quiet moment. Glenlivet at Jim’s funeral, sharing a moment as meditative music plays.
5. My right foot. The doctor says to keep dancing, if the pain lets me. Andrea advises leather soles for this floor. I have been wearing the suede-soled Delies, because they have lower heels--even though they crunch my toes and stick to the floor, twisting my foot with every pivot. The leather-soled Comme il Fauts don’t do that. A blessing! I can take classes and dance!
4. Fabulous DJ’ing at the alternative and all-night milongas. We talk about connecting with partner, music, floor, room. Little do we know, while we’re doing all that, the DJ is connecting with us.
3. Girlfriends. Getting ready for the alternative milonga together; sharing our nervousness, chewing gum to settle down, entering the milonga in solidarity; huddling under a shared pashmina for warmth; noshing between tandas; joshingly competing for the same lead; mocking the sluttiness of one another’s outfits; admiring shoes and makeup and hair; comparing notes on the out-of-town leads; commiserating over failed cabaceos. … The women who come only to dance miss half the fun of milongas.
2. Watching people, people watching. Working the door, looking in. This is the best seat in the house. No pressure, you can settle into the moment and let it flow. Far back from the floor, you can stare unabashedly at your favorites. The dancers look like exotic fish floating and flowing along. … Encouraging passers-by to stick their heads in, to step into the ballroom and watch. The only thing better than watching tango is introducing others to it.
1. One World, One Tango
In Denver’s Doubletree Hotel, a woman in split sole jazz shoes absently runs through variations on the cross as the elevator ascends.
Crossing the lobby, a man moves with counterbody motion.
At the registration desk, a woman tries to hold her place in line, loses control and glides off in a series of complicated steps.
A man taking an outdoor smoking break practices balanced moves forward and back along a parking curb.
Today, in office hallways and copier rooms, in airport security lines, on sidewalks and at streetcorners, in grocery store aisles, at the bank, in kitchens and bathrooms and hardwood-floored living rooms ...
... in BuenosAiresAmsterdamIstanbulTokyoSanFranciscoAnchorageParis ... in CentralParkUnionSquaretheCheesman Pavilion and, God and love willing, on the Temple Mount once again....
... tangueros and tangeuras are doing the same.
Consciously, absently, intently, carelessly.
Tango runs like thread through the world. Alone or together, in class or practica or milonga, every step weaves a web of connection.
One world. One love. One tango.
11. Campy and hot. Dancing in fedora and shades. Today, suave-and-sweet is dark and dangerous, too. Excuse me now, I need to go swoon.
10. Getting a clue. Barbara Durr’s hilarious pantomime of a cabaceo-clueless woman, who will never get a dance at a milonga. Hey, wait a minute! She looks like me!
9. Tango music trance. A woman openly weeping at the deep, holy beauty of the last song of Grisha’s musicality class. As we applaud she hurries to the back of the room, wiping her face with both hands.
8. A new adornment. After two months of tweaking and practicing a new adornment that one of my teachers doubted I could pull off, slipping it into a dance with Stan and then Jane—and they like it!
7. Being Cinderella. Kathleen and Mary Alice fussing over me like Cinderella, altering my dress, poring over an extensive collection of jewelry, choosing the earrings, bickering over the necklace, advising on hairdo, teasing, and assuring me that yes, the outfit looks as beautiful as it makes me feel.
6. A quiet moment. Glenlivet at Jim’s funeral, sharing a moment as meditative music plays.
5. My right foot. The doctor says to keep dancing, if the pain lets me. Andrea advises leather soles for this floor. I have been wearing the suede-soled Delies, because they have lower heels--even though they crunch my toes and stick to the floor, twisting my foot with every pivot. The leather-soled Comme il Fauts don’t do that. A blessing! I can take classes and dance!
4. Fabulous DJ’ing at the alternative and all-night milongas. We talk about connecting with partner, music, floor, room. Little do we know, while we’re doing all that, the DJ is connecting with us.
3. Girlfriends. Getting ready for the alternative milonga together; sharing our nervousness, chewing gum to settle down, entering the milonga in solidarity; huddling under a shared pashmina for warmth; noshing between tandas; joshingly competing for the same lead; mocking the sluttiness of one another’s outfits; admiring shoes and makeup and hair; comparing notes on the out-of-town leads; commiserating over failed cabaceos. … The women who come only to dance miss half the fun of milongas.
2. Watching people, people watching. Working the door, looking in. This is the best seat in the house. No pressure, you can settle into the moment and let it flow. Far back from the floor, you can stare unabashedly at your favorites. The dancers look like exotic fish floating and flowing along. … Encouraging passers-by to stick their heads in, to step into the ballroom and watch. The only thing better than watching tango is introducing others to it.
1. One World, One Tango
In Denver’s Doubletree Hotel, a woman in split sole jazz shoes absently runs through variations on the cross as the elevator ascends.
Crossing the lobby, a man moves with counterbody motion.
At the registration desk, a woman tries to hold her place in line, loses control and glides off in a series of complicated steps.
A man taking an outdoor smoking break practices balanced moves forward and back along a parking curb.
Today, in office hallways and copier rooms, in airport security lines, on sidewalks and at streetcorners, in grocery store aisles, at the bank, in kitchens and bathrooms and hardwood-floored living rooms ...
... in BuenosAiresAmsterdamIstanbulTokyoSanFranciscoAnchorageParis ... in CentralParkUnionSquaretheCheesman Pavilion and, God and love willing, on the Temple Mount once again....
... tangueros and tangeuras are doing the same.
Consciously, absently, intently, carelessly.
Tango runs like thread through the world. Alone or together, in class or practica or milonga, every step weaves a web of connection.
One world. One love. One tango.
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Blind Date from Hell ... and a Little Piece of Grace
7 a.m. Labor Day, or, The Blind Date from Hell
It’s the very last tanda of the very last event of the Labor Day festival. We have been dancing since midnight. It is 7 a.m.
I have just finished dancing with Grisha. He leads me back to my seat. No sooner does he leave than a man who has been sitting quietly by turns and gives me a look.
I know better. Enough is enough. I don’t dance with strangers.
But.
I like this guy’s cabaceo. He is mugging it up. I like the way he has been sitting, very calm.
And he’s cool looking. African American in a crisp, white shirt. Salt and pepper beard. Glasses. I’ve watched him dance. He doesn’t do anything fancy. I think I can follow him.
“I’m a beginner,” I warn him. “You can back out if you like.”
First warning bell clangs. I have sworn off saying that kind of thing. Why do I feel the need to say it now?
He thinks I am being modest. He just watched me dance with Grisha.
He soon learns the truth. We struggle. He keeps jiggling my hand, bending it back.
At the end of the second dance, he strikes a pose. His whole body slumps, he turns his head toward his buddies on the sidelines, rolls his head toward the ceiling.
Thank you [go to hell], I say. I don’t want to torture you further. Good night.
No, no! he says, snapping to attention. We can finish the tanda.
He sounds surprised. I can’t read his expression. He is standing a foot away, and I am not wearing my glasses. Without them I can see only three inches. People think I am joking when I say this. I am dead serious.
Second warning bell. Bad idea to dance blind with a stranger.
We struggle through the third dance. He is still jiggling my hand, bending it back, a little more emphatically than before, a little more energetically than necessary. He orders me to relax. This is an interesting exercise. I try to push through all the crap, get to the connection.
Third warning bell: Anything that goes this badly must end badly too.
The DJ is playing four-song tandas tonight. Neither of us is happy about that. But we are surviving. And this guy insisted on finishing the tanda. I guess if he’s game, I can be, too.
The third dance ends and, without warning, he’s gone. With a stunning economy of movement, he simply walks away. At first I’m not sure what just happened. Then it dawns on me, and my face makes a shape I don’t want it to make—hurt and shame.
I’ve been cut off mid-tanda before, but the lead usually has the decency to walk me to the edge of the floor, to say thank you, to make some attempt to save my dignity. This guy means to draw blood.
Did I not offer him an out? Twice?
That question must wait. Right now I am stranded. I can’t see.
I need to get off the floor before the music begins. I can’t judge distances well with my glasses on. Without them, threading my way through moving couples would be a disaster.
This is just like leading, I tell myself, the first step is the hardest. I pick a direction, make my way to the edge of the dance floor. I can see the line where light wood gives way to dark carpet. I step carefully over.
I am lost.
I can see tables and chairs. They run perpendicular to the dance floor, just like where I was sitting. But they are not the same tables and chairs. When I get to the end seat at the end table (a seat I chose because it’s easy to find), nothing is there. My table was cluttered. Did someone clean the table—and take my glasses? Or is this the wrong place altogether?
I’m not panicking, but my emotions are not helping me think. I take a seat, fiddle with my shoes while I try to calm down and figure out how to find my way back to my glasses.
If there is any irregularity in the carpet--any loose thread or covered cord, any piece of trash that might turn an ankle—I will take a header. And that’s the least of my worries. Here’s the big one: I have no clue where I am in the room.
Even as I’m fiddling with my shoes, hot with embarrassment and awash in emotion, something good is coming on: I am mad mad mad. Three months ago, something like this would have slain me. I would have believed I deserved it.
Now I believe this: There are 100 ways to say anything. The way that you choose to say something reflects your quality.
The way this guy behaved is his bad, not mine.
So what if I’m blind and humiliated and lost in a cavernous room?
I was a Girl Scout. I have been dropped off in the woods with nothing but a map and a compass. I have visited every state in the country, and have been lost in most of them.
I am ready to take this room on.
There are huge black things nearby. I wasn’t sitting near anything like that. There are areas of brightness across the room. These must be the doors, open to the hallway. I was sitting near them.
I stand. Andrey says that when he leads, he walks straight through the follower and she had better get out of the way. That’s the way to do it.
I gather myself, flip the ends of my hair in a pissed-off gesture I haven’t used since seventh grade, and lead myself to the doors.
I find the end seat at the end table. No glasses. A woman is sitting nearby. She wasn’t there before, but I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place.
Excuse me, I say, and ask for her help. She finds my glasses, hands them to me.
11 a.m. Labor Day: Aftermath
Breakfast at the Waffle House in Aurora, the perfect greasy spoon ending to the grand finale of festival week, the all-night marathon milonga.
After the last, worst dance of the festival, I am back where I was last fall, letting people get to me, feeling too much.
I am a whipped dog; all I want is to go into hiding, lick my wounds and never be heard from again.
But I’m mad, too.
Cruelty sets me off like nothing else can. I am completely dogmatic about it. A lifetime of religious dilettantism boils down to One Absolute, Universal Ironclad Moral Code:
Be kind every chance you get.
People who practice cruelty are unworthy of a place in the human community.
That’s very judgmental. Very Angel-Bouncer at the gates of the Garden of Eden, throwing Adam and Eve out on their ears. It’s not like me. I am all about moral relativism. Really. Up to this point: Don’t be cruel to others.
As I’m forking up eggs and grits, a corollary slaps me upside the head:
Don’t be cruel to me, either.
Ow! What’s that I feel? Could I be growing a backbone?
As I pay my check and walk out the door, the jukebox cranks up Aretha:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
You go, girl.
7 p.m. Labor Day … 12 Hours After the Blind Date from Hell
The Monday Night extravaganza at the Blue Ice is one of the corollary activities that spring up around the Labor Day festival. There will be lessons by the region’s most innovative dancers, an exhibition and brief concert.
The place is full of out-of-towners, lingering on a day or two after the festival ends. I recognize one of them:
He is standing at the counter that separates the bar from the dance floor. He is tall and thin, African American, in the crisp, bright-white shirt he was wearing about 12 hours ago, the last time we danced. Small beard, salt and pepper; small glasses, an intelligent look. Handsome. You can’t tell from looking he’s hiding a switchblade in his heart.
Fine. I was not planning to stay anyway.
Near the exit, I bump into Grisha. I saw what he did to you this morning,” he says.
I make a little joke about it. We laugh. Then I flee.
But approaching the car, my thoughts turn rebellious. Blue Ice is my tango home. Am I going to let this guy run me out? What will that do to me next time I walk in the door? How long will it be until I feel at home there again?
Two blocks away, I make up my mind. I am going back in. I’ll sit and watch. I don’t need to dance. I need to not let this guy run me out.
Stopped at a traffic light, I change my mind again. I will dance! I will walk in there fully charged. I will drag Grisha onto the floor. He would go for it; he would make me look great, and he would give it a special effort when we pass by this guy.
This will be fun!
But circling back, I have second thoughts again. If my mind is on the other guy, I will be connecting with him, not my partner. This is wrong on every level: I can’t dance competently if my mind is occupied elsewhere. Even if my partner is in on the game, it isn’t fair to give my attention to one man when I am dancing with another.
My intention is off; the motivation feels underhanded. It is disrespectful to Dance to use it in this way. It feels like I am hiding a switchblade in my own heart.
This is the danger of targeting someone: You focus on them, and then they are in you.
I keep driving. I need to think.
If I dance tonight, it needs to be a real dance, not some snide message tossed off to some stranger. I need to enter it very sincerely. I imagine that kind of connection for a moment, the purity of it. Closing my eyes, I can feel it.
Warm night air flows through the windows. It feels like music. With this sensation surrounding me, I can’t think, only listen.
My heart beats. My stomach growls, making me chuckle. It always has to express its opinion. My chest opens up and I can breathe.
Tangled thoughts, hurt feelings, righteous judgment, vengeful anger. Finally, they all come to rest. I ask myself:
What is it in this moment you want?
I want to make beauty in the world. I want to dance.
It’s the very last tanda of the very last event of the Labor Day festival. We have been dancing since midnight. It is 7 a.m.
I have just finished dancing with Grisha. He leads me back to my seat. No sooner does he leave than a man who has been sitting quietly by turns and gives me a look.
I know better. Enough is enough. I don’t dance with strangers.
But.
I like this guy’s cabaceo. He is mugging it up. I like the way he has been sitting, very calm.
And he’s cool looking. African American in a crisp, white shirt. Salt and pepper beard. Glasses. I’ve watched him dance. He doesn’t do anything fancy. I think I can follow him.
“I’m a beginner,” I warn him. “You can back out if you like.”
First warning bell clangs. I have sworn off saying that kind of thing. Why do I feel the need to say it now?
He thinks I am being modest. He just watched me dance with Grisha.
He soon learns the truth. We struggle. He keeps jiggling my hand, bending it back.
At the end of the second dance, he strikes a pose. His whole body slumps, he turns his head toward his buddies on the sidelines, rolls his head toward the ceiling.
Thank you [go to hell], I say. I don’t want to torture you further. Good night.
No, no! he says, snapping to attention. We can finish the tanda.
He sounds surprised. I can’t read his expression. He is standing a foot away, and I am not wearing my glasses. Without them I can see only three inches. People think I am joking when I say this. I am dead serious.
Second warning bell. Bad idea to dance blind with a stranger.
We struggle through the third dance. He is still jiggling my hand, bending it back, a little more emphatically than before, a little more energetically than necessary. He orders me to relax. This is an interesting exercise. I try to push through all the crap, get to the connection.
Third warning bell: Anything that goes this badly must end badly too.
The DJ is playing four-song tandas tonight. Neither of us is happy about that. But we are surviving. And this guy insisted on finishing the tanda. I guess if he’s game, I can be, too.
The third dance ends and, without warning, he’s gone. With a stunning economy of movement, he simply walks away. At first I’m not sure what just happened. Then it dawns on me, and my face makes a shape I don’t want it to make—hurt and shame.
I’ve been cut off mid-tanda before, but the lead usually has the decency to walk me to the edge of the floor, to say thank you, to make some attempt to save my dignity. This guy means to draw blood.
Did I not offer him an out? Twice?
That question must wait. Right now I am stranded. I can’t see.
I need to get off the floor before the music begins. I can’t judge distances well with my glasses on. Without them, threading my way through moving couples would be a disaster.
This is just like leading, I tell myself, the first step is the hardest. I pick a direction, make my way to the edge of the dance floor. I can see the line where light wood gives way to dark carpet. I step carefully over.
I am lost.
I can see tables and chairs. They run perpendicular to the dance floor, just like where I was sitting. But they are not the same tables and chairs. When I get to the end seat at the end table (a seat I chose because it’s easy to find), nothing is there. My table was cluttered. Did someone clean the table—and take my glasses? Or is this the wrong place altogether?
I’m not panicking, but my emotions are not helping me think. I take a seat, fiddle with my shoes while I try to calm down and figure out how to find my way back to my glasses.
If there is any irregularity in the carpet--any loose thread or covered cord, any piece of trash that might turn an ankle—I will take a header. And that’s the least of my worries. Here’s the big one: I have no clue where I am in the room.
Even as I’m fiddling with my shoes, hot with embarrassment and awash in emotion, something good is coming on: I am mad mad mad. Three months ago, something like this would have slain me. I would have believed I deserved it.
Now I believe this: There are 100 ways to say anything. The way that you choose to say something reflects your quality.
The way this guy behaved is his bad, not mine.
So what if I’m blind and humiliated and lost in a cavernous room?
I was a Girl Scout. I have been dropped off in the woods with nothing but a map and a compass. I have visited every state in the country, and have been lost in most of them.
I am ready to take this room on.
There are huge black things nearby. I wasn’t sitting near anything like that. There are areas of brightness across the room. These must be the doors, open to the hallway. I was sitting near them.
I stand. Andrey says that when he leads, he walks straight through the follower and she had better get out of the way. That’s the way to do it.
I gather myself, flip the ends of my hair in a pissed-off gesture I haven’t used since seventh grade, and lead myself to the doors.
I find the end seat at the end table. No glasses. A woman is sitting nearby. She wasn’t there before, but I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place.
Excuse me, I say, and ask for her help. She finds my glasses, hands them to me.
***
11 a.m. Labor Day: Aftermath
Breakfast at the Waffle House in Aurora, the perfect greasy spoon ending to the grand finale of festival week, the all-night marathon milonga.
After the last, worst dance of the festival, I am back where I was last fall, letting people get to me, feeling too much.
I am a whipped dog; all I want is to go into hiding, lick my wounds and never be heard from again.
But I’m mad, too.
Cruelty sets me off like nothing else can. I am completely dogmatic about it. A lifetime of religious dilettantism boils down to One Absolute, Universal Ironclad Moral Code:
Be kind every chance you get.
People who practice cruelty are unworthy of a place in the human community.
That’s very judgmental. Very Angel-Bouncer at the gates of the Garden of Eden, throwing Adam and Eve out on their ears. It’s not like me. I am all about moral relativism. Really. Up to this point: Don’t be cruel to others.
As I’m forking up eggs and grits, a corollary slaps me upside the head:
Don’t be cruel to me, either.
Ow! What’s that I feel? Could I be growing a backbone?
As I pay my check and walk out the door, the jukebox cranks up Aretha:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
You go, girl.
***
7 p.m. Labor Day … 12 Hours After the Blind Date from Hell
The Monday Night extravaganza at the Blue Ice is one of the corollary activities that spring up around the Labor Day festival. There will be lessons by the region’s most innovative dancers, an exhibition and brief concert.
The place is full of out-of-towners, lingering on a day or two after the festival ends. I recognize one of them:
He is standing at the counter that separates the bar from the dance floor. He is tall and thin, African American, in the crisp, bright-white shirt he was wearing about 12 hours ago, the last time we danced. Small beard, salt and pepper; small glasses, an intelligent look. Handsome. You can’t tell from looking he’s hiding a switchblade in his heart.
Fine. I was not planning to stay anyway.
Near the exit, I bump into Grisha. I saw what he did to you this morning,” he says.
I make a little joke about it. We laugh. Then I flee.
But approaching the car, my thoughts turn rebellious. Blue Ice is my tango home. Am I going to let this guy run me out? What will that do to me next time I walk in the door? How long will it be until I feel at home there again?
Two blocks away, I make up my mind. I am going back in. I’ll sit and watch. I don’t need to dance. I need to not let this guy run me out.
Stopped at a traffic light, I change my mind again. I will dance! I will walk in there fully charged. I will drag Grisha onto the floor. He would go for it; he would make me look great, and he would give it a special effort when we pass by this guy.
This will be fun!
But circling back, I have second thoughts again. If my mind is on the other guy, I will be connecting with him, not my partner. This is wrong on every level: I can’t dance competently if my mind is occupied elsewhere. Even if my partner is in on the game, it isn’t fair to give my attention to one man when I am dancing with another.
My intention is off; the motivation feels underhanded. It is disrespectful to Dance to use it in this way. It feels like I am hiding a switchblade in my own heart.
This is the danger of targeting someone: You focus on them, and then they are in you.
I keep driving. I need to think.
If I dance tonight, it needs to be a real dance, not some snide message tossed off to some stranger. I need to enter it very sincerely. I imagine that kind of connection for a moment, the purity of it. Closing my eyes, I can feel it.
Warm night air flows through the windows. It feels like music. With this sensation surrounding me, I can’t think, only listen.
My heart beats. My stomach growls, making me chuckle. It always has to express its opinion. My chest opens up and I can breathe.
Tangled thoughts, hurt feelings, righteous judgment, vengeful anger. Finally, they all come to rest. I ask myself:
What is it in this moment you want?
I want to make beauty in the world. I want to dance.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Jay Gatsby Would Have Lived Longer if He Had Learned to Tango
Jay Gatsby would have lived longer if he had learned to tango.
It is Sunday night, Labor Day weekend, and the marble pavilion at Cheesman Park is lit like a fairy barge, floating in a pool of blue-white light. This is the light of enchantment, the pure distillation of the three-quarter moon.
Imagine Gatsby.
He stands on the grassy slope beyond the pavilion, outside the reach of its glow, looking on, feeling inadequate and common. He hails from the midwest. He looks like the young Robert Redford.
In the fey light, beautiful people are mingling, dipping and flowing in intricate patterns. The men are dashing, the women light and graceful as orchids. Music pours over them, at once exotic and haunting, mournful and seductive. The effect is profuse, lush and procreant as a Latin jungle.
Shane and I run trippingly across the dark lawn, across the apron with its twin fountains, up the marble stairs and into the light. It is lush and beautiful and we are beautiful in it.
Gatsby sees this: Common people transformed as they ascend the marble steps.
Gatsby throws off his coat and loosens his tie. He bounds up the steps, eager to step into the polished light.
Shane vanishes and Gatsby catches me up in a close embrace. I disapprove, but I don’t let him know it. I let him tread on my feet, and I tell him he’s perfect.
Bred of farmers and lumberjacks and sailors and laborers and marauding industrialists, Gatsby has much to forget to realize his vision of grace. The steps are only the means to this end.
Now he is dancing, now he is convinced of his own beauty.
At last, tired and thirsty, Gatsby steps off the back side of the pavilion and into the potluck. There are long tables covered with food. Coolers with bottled drinks. Red-checked cloths, fake flower centerpieces and candles. Paper plates and plastic forks, paper napkins, plastic cups. All in the dark under the three-quarter moon.
In the reflected glow of the pavilion, Gatsby takes up a plate and forgives himself for loving the coleslaw.
It is Sunday night, Labor Day weekend, and the marble pavilion at Cheesman Park is lit like a fairy barge, floating in a pool of blue-white light. This is the light of enchantment, the pure distillation of the three-quarter moon.
Imagine Gatsby.
He stands on the grassy slope beyond the pavilion, outside the reach of its glow, looking on, feeling inadequate and common. He hails from the midwest. He looks like the young Robert Redford.
In the fey light, beautiful people are mingling, dipping and flowing in intricate patterns. The men are dashing, the women light and graceful as orchids. Music pours over them, at once exotic and haunting, mournful and seductive. The effect is profuse, lush and procreant as a Latin jungle.
Shane and I run trippingly across the dark lawn, across the apron with its twin fountains, up the marble stairs and into the light. It is lush and beautiful and we are beautiful in it.
Gatsby sees this: Common people transformed as they ascend the marble steps.
Gatsby throws off his coat and loosens his tie. He bounds up the steps, eager to step into the polished light.
Shane vanishes and Gatsby catches me up in a close embrace. I disapprove, but I don’t let him know it. I let him tread on my feet, and I tell him he’s perfect.
Bred of farmers and lumberjacks and sailors and laborers and marauding industrialists, Gatsby has much to forget to realize his vision of grace. The steps are only the means to this end.
Now he is dancing, now he is convinced of his own beauty.
At last, tired and thirsty, Gatsby steps off the back side of the pavilion and into the potluck. There are long tables covered with food. Coolers with bottled drinks. Red-checked cloths, fake flower centerpieces and candles. Paper plates and plastic forks, paper napkins, plastic cups. All in the dark under the three-quarter moon.
In the reflected glow of the pavilion, Gatsby takes up a plate and forgives himself for loving the coleslaw.
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