Last night...

Last night, I danced a milonga tanda, and I had that wonderful feeling again. The feeling of moving as one. The flutters of anticipation took over. The subtlest movements were met by understanding, the surprise of moving so well together overjoyed both of us and we both knew it.

A perfect few minutes of understanding each other, having patience and willingness to be together... A perfect few songs of mischievousness and trickery, a perfect few moments that are so difficult to replicate...

It does not always happen, this magical thing. Sometimes you think it is lost forever. Other times you find yourself having forgotten that you are looking for it. But it finds you. It finds you like the wind finds sails, like the sun finds the horizon, like the waves find the shore...

and then I find my self wondering, how I could even wonder whether it is lost forever, or doubt it is coming back...Because it will always find you, give you a kiss, make the corners of your mouth curl up, and inevitably will leave... again...


The image is "Fishing Boats Leaving the Port of Le Havre" 1874, Cloude Monet...

Ode to feeling better...

Another disagreement
Another fight
Another disheartened soul
Another flight

Flight away from this place
From this town from this feeling
Slightly worse, with tears on my face
Slowly dealing, slowly healing

Here is to never never and ever
Here is to tomorrow feeling better
Buying a new pair of tango shoes
Mending my soul with stilettos and booze...

Stream of tango subconsciousness...

anticipation
imagination
wondering
suspense
intense attention
yearning to understand
trying to make a good impression

becoming familiar
becoming regular
becoming mundane
and you stop hearing your own heartbeat
and you know that is the end
that your imagination has runout
and that you know him too well
That he holds your hand but does not feel your heart beat
You dance but it is not the same

and then.. across the room
there is a pair of eyes you don't know
that ask a question
so beautifully
that you are curious to make up an answer for
and eventually make him forget his question
his ambition
only he wants to hear you now
and you hear your heart again

I am on facebook. After a milonga, after a festival, after a weekend of crazy fun, I am on facebook. Trying to run the beautiful events of the recent past in my mind in an effort not to forget them, in fact, to re-live them, to put them in shuffle and replay in my mind, over and over and over. Like a drug...

I also develop these crushes on those moments where I have the perfect connection. The beautiful tandas, the mutual understanding of music, the synchronized smiles... How can I not. Completely platonic, harmless, and like every crush, ephemeral...

I do not want the weekend to end. I do not want the tanda to end, I do not want the festival to end. Sometimes I wonder: is this what it will feel like when I am dying? Am I going to be left with this feeling of increasing emptiness in my heart, the void left by ever-fleeting moments of joy, here now, gone next... Am I going to yearn for life and will not want it to end? And does this mean that every time I end a beautiful tanda, every time I leave your embrace, every time I come back from a festival, or a great milonga, every time we say good bye, I die a little?

Missing...

I miss you
Like my eyelids miss each other
Like there is no tomorrow and no hope of seeing you
I miss you and I miss me
Because when I miss you I don't have me here
When I miss you my head spins
From lack of you running in my veins
My breath comes to shallows of my dreams where I chase your shadow
My hands grow numb, not remembering your touch
I miss you like there was no togetherness
The idea of you fades away
I grow dull, gray, and ordinary
And I find you again
Like water in desert
Like a friend in foreign lands
Like a cool shadow in hot summer noon
Like two hands clapping
Like salt and sand on a beach
Like monday and tuesday....

Dancing, Dreaming and Ghosts...

Last night, I had a fantastic night of tango. Many tandas, great conversations, a lot of laughs.., And as I was experiencing such a great night, I also started thinking about other great nights, and my favorite tango people who were not there with me last night. As I was enjoying a milonga, my mind wandered, thinking about many other great milongas I danced, and the ghosts of those milongas started revolving around us, dancing with us, as we were dancing with the music, with the floor, with each other, and with our ghosts.

There are good ghosts you know... Ghosts that you want to have. Last night as my old ghosts visited me on the dance floor. And as I was dancing, I witnessed the creation of new ghosts that would come and visit me at a later time... Sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes in the middle of a tanda, sometimes, when I am dreaming, and sometimes, when I am walking on the street, summoned by the first few notes of a favorite tango....

If life is yearning for you...

I am lost in your absence.
My eyes see the world around me
With the beat of my heart.
Images now bigger and now smaller...
With every beat,
I search for you,
with palpitations of a million beats..
And when I find you
My heart stops.
I die...