Some background will help illuminate things a bit… I was raised in a fundamentalist/Charismatic milieu that frowned on a great many things, including social dancing. With that in mind, fast forward ahead a few decades….
Two and a half years ago, after putting in some incredibly long hours at work around the Christmas holidays, I treated myself to some Turkish food at Meze in the Adams Morgan district of D.C. I found there upon the table a placard advertising tango lessons, with the beginner’s lesson at 7 and the intermediate at 8. Such was my cluelessness that I thought that one would take the first class, and then the second one. This is a real knee-slapper when I repeat this nowadays in tango circles.
Now, I do not hold myself out to be some great dancer, or anything; it took two vacations in Buenos Aires (the first was split between Spanish and a few dance lessons, the second entirely about dance) and a “tango push” from roughly last November to just recently to bring me to a place where I am not a total embarrassment to myself. On a good day I can process an intermediate level class. When one reads my notations at my tango blog, they should not think that I see myself as having “learned” these step. These are notes to help me come back and practice again and again until I can do them.
Someone asked me recently what I wanted out of dance, or words to this effect. In my ideal life I’d dance a little bit every day with that special someone – I am qualified to teach basic figures – and maybe go once a week to a class appropriate to our level so we can keep expanding our skills at play together. I don’t see myself becoming this great tanguero; or anything. I will say that I have found a measure of peace and healing in this place; and that my experiences have confirmed my utter disdain for legalistic protestantism.
Back to that first lesson: At the milonga that followed, I can still see in my minds eye something that stayed with me: A couple dancing, with bliss on the lady’s face (she was performing volcadas, as I now understand). I saw that there was something there that I wanted. I have found that, now, and have expressed a little of that in this poem. Maybe in my state then as a freshly divorced man I was particularly sensitive to what this need, or desire, was; though I could not articulate that idea until much later. In all my time dancing – though I cannot say I could call it “dancing” until some months ago – I have only asked two people out, ever. One goes into social dancing to meet other people; but one will meet themselves in the end.
