
I'm still catching up. Job changes, recovering from the flu, and so many other things going on have put me way behind in answering comments on the blog, and in email. So please be patient with me as I try to catch up. Meanwhile, I'll be publishing a few things here and there that have been sitting in drafts too long . . .
Diary entries
03/07/2011 - Is tango fun?
From the free dictionary online: "Fun (noun): A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure."
Jantango said in a comment that she does not dance tango because it's fun.
"This may come as a surprise, but tango isn't fun for me. It's so much more. Lots of things can be fun for a moment, but then it passes and you want something else to satisfy. Tango does that for me."
I am glad that tango does that for Jan, but the implication seems to be that if I'm having fun, somehow I'm not really getting it - not really experiencing true tango. Or maybe I'm not serious enough. If I'm misunderstanding this Jan, then please let me know.
Quite often I dance tango because it is fun. But why would saying that tango is fun exclude it from being anything else? Or from it being a lasting or satisfying enjoyment?
I don't judge anyone else's reason for dancing tango. We all come to it for different reasons, and those reasons are subject to change over time.
I know a man who came to tango, as many do, for the love of a woman. She left. He stayed. Is tango fun for him? He frequently says so. Is it more? Undoubtedly.
I came to tango to heal my body and found that it also heals the soul. Is tango fun for me? Yes. Is it more than that? It is beyond anything I could have imagined. My blog might be quite a bit more sparse if it weren't.
What does it matter? Who am I, or is anyone else, to analyze or criticize someone's reasons for dancing tango? Or what they get from it? Why would I even presume I could know someone else's experience of tango?
03/14/11 - What tango is for me tonight . . .
I'm reading the news before bed again. I know I shouldn't because it will probably keep me up for hours (not that blogging is likely to send me to bed any sooner.) I have been catching snippets and comments, watching the news as if from my peripheral vision. Trying not to take it all in fully.
As if I could take it all in.
There's too much.
DH is frustrated because I cry over the news. Crying accomplishes nothing and keeps me awake, so why spend the energy? He asks this of me, yet he knows I cry over tango songs, sad movies, and even a few melodramatic television commercials. That I'm crying over the devastation in Japan, over the political (and human rights) crises that have erupted all over the Middle East, and over the venom being spewed by politicians here in the US in place of the true work that needs to be done - should really come as no surprise. I'm overly emotional about all sorts of things. Maybe for that reason, I have found such a perfect home in tango. I can be as emotional as I need to be.
So I read the news. Have a good cry. Then I put on my vals CDs to make the world seem okay again. Or at least okay enough for now so I can get some sleep.
Vignette
The three of us were in Daniela's kitchen - Daniel "El Latigo" Ponce, Daniela Arcuri and me. The lesson was over and there was a pause in our chatting. The transition was happening - from tango life to the non-tango life. Like leaving through an airlock - a change in pressure. My outside life was returning to my shoulders. I was suddenly very tired. We all seemed to breathe out at once.
I looked at Daniel and answered a question he had asked me earlier. "I dance tango because when the world falls apart, I can still, for now at least, get up, find a milonga and dance."