I’ve been at 5300 feet for nearly two weeks and my blood pressure is still too high at 146/92. I never really paid much attention to my blood pressure until I took the physical to go to Afghanistan. Thank you, Lord, for changing my course, that would have been a rough wave to ride! With this in mind, life in Farmington, near the Four Corners region of the US and at the entrance to the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, is not so bad.
It has been eight days since I tango’d last and I can’t take it anymore: off I go to Albuquerque. Right now, I’m at the Walmart getting my oil changed. My iron got returned by the Post Office, so I have to do laundry before I go: my permanent press clothes from last week are in there. It’s not easy being a tango gypsy but I’m doing it; I’ve got no choice, and that, really, is what it means to be alive: coping with situations where circumstances are beyond our control.
I think that is what I loved about whitewater kayaking, the thrill of entering a dangerous rapid and making course corrections that could mean life or death. Tango is like that, too. You can’t really control your partner, or the crowd, so you are forced to make course corrections that allow you to exist in harmony with everybody else.
I’m surprised my blood pressure is so high because I’ve been eating well and I haven’t taken allergy medicine since I got here. Also, I’ve been focusing on hydration and haven’t had any back problems, or joint problems, since I started paying attention to my water intake. I’m losing weight, too, and have been since this summer when I realized my metabolism slowed down considerably now that I’m 51 years old. A tanguera, Lady X, used her power of suggestion to get me to realize my weight was a health problem, not just an impediment to dancing. I’m a stubborn person and I guess I’ve been in denial about why I have to lose the extra weight.
That’s just the physical me and these are things I can control. I am working on ‘dancing’ with the things I am unable to affect directly. How this is done is where the beauty and ugliness of living lies. How I treat my family, how I deal with women and men, how I respect the Earth, whether I’m a litterbug, a spoiler, or a person who makes my environment a better, cleaner, more friendly place to live, make me more attractive or more despicable.
I guess I want to be pretty:-) LOL! But I’m serious. Tango has changed me. So have the raging rapids of the rivers I’ve known. Years of whitewater river running has helped me make sense of the chaos in rushing current. The frothy turmoil is no longer a confusing picture. I see the eddies and cross-currents as untangled, navigable paths and realize why it is necessary for me to perfect my forward stroke, my brace, my fundamentals.
So too, for tango. The music is no longer this insane Mexican combobulation of melodies; it’s not even Mexican! It’s Argentine, it’s Piazzola, Gardel, Canaro; it’s tango, vals, milonga. My partner is not just a sexy object of my affections, she is a person, a stranger and she needs to be treated with respect and diplomacy. In tango, I have to be sensitive and I have to be strong. That is why I must walk with confidence and on my own balance, that is why I work to perfect my step, my pivot, my composure, the fundamentals of my dance.
The river and the dance are great metaphors for life. At fifty-one, where I fit in the grand scheme of things is a lot clearer to me than it was when I was twenty. To some, it seems logical to inoculate themselves from life’s rapids or to sit down and try to avoid the dance but it can’t be done; they are only delaying the inevitable: the day they confront a world where circumstances are beyond their control.
So, here I am in Farmington, New Mexico. There is no dance here other than the dance of life and I embrace it wholeheartedly.
Adios, for now, I’m looking on the bright side, eating healthy and learning how to live in New Mexico. The scenery here is gorgeous. Sunsets are incredible; cameras can’t capture the red and yellow hues of the light when the sun shines directly on the canyon walls and mountain sides.
Kayak Hombre
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