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Artist: Original drawing by the author of Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
Almost exactly one year ago, I walked into a dance studio, and started dancing tango.
Well, it was supposed to be tango, but it probably looked more like a cross between the WWF and a dismal medieval funeral procession marched backwards. Bobbing up and down… On stilts…
(Ugh.)
And with my very first step, to the very first note of the very first song, which I no longer remember, I fell in love.
Back then, the only things I knew about that far-away land of Argentina were:
Jorge Luis Borges
Gato Barbieri
Astor Piazzolla
Madonna singing that incredibly annoying song.
Since then…
I have been impregnated by a magic seed, and am awakening to find myself climbing an enormous beanstalk. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, and when I forget to chase that elusive ghostly white rabbit, I am staring at my own transformation in wonder, wide-eyed, through the looking-glass. My floppy, clumsy tail has been exchanged for a pair of real legs and strong feet. Those misadventures through frightening forests of mean old trees are behind me, and now the flowers are teaching me the art of their effervescent colors, the secret to their ephermeral scents. Along the way, I have met my share of evil sorcerers, stupid ogres, spiteful goblins, and ugly dwarves… But when I get too frightened or tired, I peek into the occasional gingerbread house, and partake of shiny, sparkly, glittery things that make me very happy, indeed. And ofcourse, I consistently ignore the midnight curfew, comme il faut, or no, and, I have kissed my frog prince…
Last night, to celebrate, the Lover and I threw core strength and dissociation, groundedness and connection, all obsessive thoughts of practice and technique, buck all to the winds, and just danced for fun. I didn’t care if my hysterical giggling made our chests vibrate against each other, my right eyeball knock against his cheekbone. He didn’t care if his head was at a weird angle while his lips were on my forehead, kissing me for the duration of half a song. Everything we learned and had absorbed into our bodies just fell into place, our imperfections naturally adjusted themselves to the other, we fit together like a puzzle, and we had a blast.
This dark, hilarious, difficult, fantastically delicious fairytale gesamtkunstwerk that is the Tango is now so much a part of my life, that I feel as if I have always, always been dancing it. And I am going to dance it until I am 365 years-old.
And my dear blogueros and blogueras, you will all be there dancing and writing right there with me, right?
Love,
Nuit.
I will be there!
Beautifully expressed … I feel like I could have written this whole entry, only it wouldn’t have come out so well. :)
Happy birthday! I’m so glad the magic is still with you.
It’s my tango birthday in one week. I’m currently feeling a little sparkleless. Worry eclipses my magic too easily. Tonight I’ll try to follow your example and dance just for fun.
thank you MT! i am so glad i can share this feeling with you, hand-in-hand, inside the kaleidescope. :-)
oh dear psyche — many times, i’ve sat back down after tanda after tanda, breathless… with disappointment and worry about my dancing. weeks go by at a time, with no magic. but once in a while, it occurs to me that i’m being too hard on myself. and then i just let myself go, and my wings seem to grow on their own. actually, your comment gave me an idea for another post! besos.
Many happy returns:-)
Oh yes, how I will dance my life until I am 365 years old!
I started exactly on January 7th, and I will always, always remember that moment, my very first step and how I immediately fell in deep love - I relate so much to that post that with your permission, I’ll put it on my own blog. About that, a funny thing happened : since I was afraid my tango partners would find out what I was writing (sometimes about them), I took off most of my posts and put them on another blog. Since then, I can’t bring myself to write again! But I do dance, and if I have not kissed my beautiful frog yet, I take a deeper breath when in close embrace… :-0))
[...] plus sur le tango, je n’arrive plus à écrire, point. Et quand je lis ce qui suit chez La Nuit Blanche, je sais que je ne pourrai pas faire autrement que d’y revenir, parce que… c’est [...]
la tanguerita - i love saying your name, hehe. it’s so sassy! thank you for your well wishes.
tassili, i predict you will find your beautiful frog soon — i bet you draw huge nets of men to you just with your spell-binding prose. :-D
Hola nuit…
Talk about spell binding prose, this one is yet another beautiful post of yours that pretty much left me speechless. I’m happy for you, most definitely, but reading your happy words is bittersweet for me, because I remember when I had those feelings, and now, sadly, they are gone.
Happy Tango Birthday!
Love,
Alex