This book is dedicated to
Ljuba Lemke, The light of my life and my destination.
May God Bless my daughters,
keep them safe from harm and help them to be good people.
"Tango is a sad thought
that can be danced"
Carlos Fuentes
The unexamined life
is not worth living.
Socrates
Preface
The tango first appeared in the United States almost
one hundred years ago and was very popular in the first half of the 20th
Century. It disappeared after World War II and reappeared after the Falklands
War in the 1980s. Today, it is thriving once again, in America and around the
world.
Tango dancers often find themselves addicted to the
music and the dancing which often last until dawn.
The mysterious world of tango has a language and a
culture all its own. To the uninformed, it can often appear to be lewd and
sexual but it is not. A strict set of rules keeps the dancers in line. These
rules, or codes, ensure that the fine line between sexual and sensual is never
crossed and that, above all, the respect of the woman is preserved.
I write to expose the mind of a man who dances tango and
how that helped me overcome my problems with intimacy. It is my hope that,
through my words, others may achieve understanding, healing, or, at the very
least, entertainment.
I don’t know why I had a fear of intimacy; maybe it
had something to do with growing up in a family of eight kids, one grandmother
and a herd of cousins. Riding in the family car, sitting at the dinner table
and watching TV, were always activities in which I felt like a sardine.
Through tango dancing, I discovered a homeopathic cure
for my problem. Homeopathy is medicine that treats poison with a stronger
poison, albeit a highly diluted one. I had a fear of intimacy and the cure was
to put myself in situations of forced intimacy by dancing the tango.
It worked!
Here are some basic
tango terms I use in this book:
milonga: a place where tango is danced.
milonga: a style of tango music.
milonga: a style of tango dancing.
tanguero: man who dances tango.
tanguera: woman who dances tango.
cabeceo: nonverbal method used to find dance partners using eye
contact and body language.
milongueros: people who dance tango often.
cruzada: a tango move where the woman crosses her feet, a very
common maneuver.
ochos: figure eight patterns.
codigos: the rules of tango.
tanda: a group of three to five songs and the
normal length of a tango engagement.
cortina: non-tango music
used to separate tandas. Usually less
than sixty seconds in length.
Chapter
One
The
Stronger Poison
After ten years of marriage, my discomfort with
physical contact was at critical levels. Two years later, I was divorced. Three
years after my divorce, I realized that I was in serious danger of becoming a
hermit and that drastic measures needed to be taken in order to prevent that
from becoming a reality.
To my surprise, and the astonishment of all my friends
and family, I took up dancing, and not just any dance; I took up The Tango, the
world’s most passionate and the most misunderstood social activity.
The dance of tango is usually paired with danger but it is
also associated with an individual suffering from a deep, personal pain. For
some, the traumatic experience lasts such a long time that they cannot imagine
living without the constant hardship. It is a strange phenomenon of the human
condition.
I’ve heard of people who choose to stay with a
soul-searing soreness rather than discard it because they are more afraid of
the unknown: a life of freedom from their monkey
that is always on their back, digging into their flesh, their nerves and often
into their very soul.
Tango music is very nostalgic and it allows you to
remember these aches, whether they are with you still or lost long ago in a vat
of wine. This is an idiosyncrasy of the dance. It is necessary for dancers to
connect to the music, as well as to each other.
To make this connection, a dancer must be honest with
himself/herself and with the music. The music is often full of painful stories
and to deny that you take comfort in this would be a lie…to yourself and to the
music.
It is this confrontation with the truth that sets you
free yet keeps you coming back forever.
The
mystique generated by the reputation of tango is one of danger and it is well
deserved. Be careful when you decide to learn how to tango…there may be no
turning back.
The
hazards associated with this dance are rarely mentioned and are never clear,
even to the victims. The wounded are left feeling like Humphrey Bogart’s
character in the movie Casablanca,
Rick Blaine, living in Morocco, broken hearted but not suicidal; wiser for the
experience but devastated in so many ways.
The
perils you face when venturing down this road are not the usual sorts you
expect to encounter: a mugger in a dark alley, swindlers or murderers. No, the
dangers you face are those that you brought with you when you entered the
embrace of your tango partner: unrequited love, loneliness and/or regrets.
The
essence of tango is in the connection between the two dancers. It is usually
performed with strangers, with no words spoken, from the invitation, all during
the songs and right through to the separation.
The reason
for this is because of ‘what might happen’. What might happen is you end up
falling in love with someone you never should have met.
That
is why tango is so dangerous.
Falling
in love is not so bad. Falling in love with the wrong person can be
devastating.
One day, I saw a hawk in the middle of the road,
standing on top of its prey, an unfortunate pigeon. It was a Cooper’s Hawk and
the pigeon was not yet dead.
The main course on the hawk’s dinner menu that night
was not too happy about the circumstances and it popped its head up to object.
With nary a ruffle of its feathers, the hawk clamped a large claw over the
pigeon's head. Its talons squeezed tightly and the hawk took the other bird’s
life with the cold heart of a natural born killer.
The instinct to kill for food is within us all. If the
accipiter failed to end the life of its victim efficiently, it might get hurt.
This kind of bird slaughters other animals daily; it probably has chicks to
feed and failure is not an option.
So it was for our ancestors, the primordial hunter,
who had to provide for the members of his clan. If he was not an emotionless
executioner on the hunt, others might starve.
As
people, we suppress certain instincts because society has laws to persuade us
not to act on them. I hold the killer instinct as a prime example. We think of
these impulses as the dark side of ourselves and are only reminded of them when
we hear about people behaving poorly in the news.
When
two people of the opposite sex come together and move to the tango music, a
perilous chemical reaction can occur. The reason social tango has so many
rules, or codigos, is to protect its
practitioners from these primal emotions that can be triggered as a result of
the tango embrace.
Some of the rules of tango are meant to protect one
partner from the other. Some rules ensure the enjoyment of the group is
maintained. The need for such guidelines can be found in abundance once a
person stops thinking of himself as an individual and acquires the perception
that he is half of a couple and one member of a crowd.
There
should be no conversation between two strangers except when the music stops
playing. Here, the words, “thank you very much,” and, “my pleasure,” are
exchanged and not much else; no relationship status inquiries, no phone number
requests, etc.
For several years, I danced with a young Polish woman
whom I found incredibly attractive. I was forty-eight when I first met her and
I guessed her age to be in the late twenties.
‘Attractive’ is not the right word. To me, she seemed
fresh like a baguette just out of the oven, as ripe as a freshly picked
strawberry in the beginning of June and as innocent as a baby fawn lying in the
tall grass down by the river, on a hot day in early July.
She
was a novice tanguera when I met her
at a well-attended practica in New
York City. Each week, I was sure to find her looking to me with her beautiful
doe-like eyes and a huge smile. When she stood to join me for our first dance,
I noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. It was all I could do to keep myself from
gawking.
Her
ochos were very polished but her boleos were non-existent. Over the
course of six months we worked on boleos
and other flowery movements. She lacked confidence in herself and I encouraged
her with my honest opinion that she moved elegantly and that I was absolutely
enchanted with her efforts.
I
had to be very careful what I said to her because I believed that the wrong
words might destroy her self-esteem and she would disappear forever. I was
infatuated with her and her absence would be a tremendous blow to my machismo.
Except for my words of support, I said very little to
her and I only spoke when prompted.
I also worried that if I said too much, my true
feelings would have been revealed and she might reject me. That would have been
an injury I don’t think my ego could have handled at the time. I might even
have stopped dancing tango altogether.
An
old man’s attraction to a younger woman is one of those base instincts from the
dark side of our ids. Our sex drive doesn’t die once our odometer turns over
for the first time.
Before the last ice age, an older man might have to
impregnate the younger girls in the tribe if some calamity befell all the other
males. He needed to do this for the survival of the community. If he didn’t,
countless strains of DNA would be lost forever.
The temptation to do something stupid was almost unbearable. I’m glad I didn’t
succumb. She didn’t need a lover, especially a poor, overweight, older man like
me. She needed the man I was for her: a skilled leader who would patiently work
with her on new movements, with no strings attached.
One
day, she showed up with a boyfriend. I was so jealous. When I scanned the room
and my eyes came upon her, she was always looking the other way.
I’m certain she had guessed how I felt about her. My
heart pined for her yet I was glad she had found happiness in another man and,
hopefully, satisfaction with her dancing that I had helped refine.
I can imagine a primitive tribe of Homo
sapiens being overrun by a competing clan. At times like these, I’d bet
that an emotion like jealousy, combined with a super-sized shot of adrenalin,
would come in handy. It could help a man fight more ferociously for a girl he’d
been hoping would carry his genes into the future.
My
young tanguera didn’t dance with me
for over a year.
One day she showed up at practica alone. Her
relationship must have been floundering because she looked at me right away and
smiled. When we danced it was like heaven! I was so glad I kept my mouth shut
and didn’t do anything awkward that would have driven a wedge between us.
We
both needed each other but we needed to keep our relationship confined to our
time together on the dance floor. If it was not for the codigo de silencio between partners, I would have ruined a
wonderful relationship.
We
enjoyed many more encounters for at least another year before I lost my job and
began traveling in search of a paycheck.
In
the course of my infatuation for that young woman, I experienced many
temptations that I successfully suppressed. In our initial encounters, I
desperately desired to stare at her breasts long enough to burn a mental
picture of them into my brain. The internet called out for me to ‘friend’ her
on Facebook. As her body moved around me, I was presented with countless opportunities
let myself linger against her for an inappropriate length of time.
I
did none of these things.
The reason I let these enticements pass is because I
learned that a woman’s respect is more important than satisfying my sexual
urges. Eventually, I would realize that this is also the number one rule
of tango. The dance is all about the woman. If I am respectful of her, I am
also paying homage to us as a couple and to my relationship to the crowd.
Tango relies heavily on a connection between two
participants bonded on an autonomic, often cosmic, level. In such a state,
parts of us are exposed with which we have very little experience controlling.
It is a brush with our primordial selves that brings us the greatest rush. We abide
by the rules of this dance, not because we are mindless automatons whirling
around in circles, but because we are dancing on the edge of a very high
precipice and the rules are the guidelines that keep us from falling to a
tragic demise.
When I first began dancing tango, I noticed there was
often a dark cloud hanging over the room. Over the years, I started to realize
that many people come to tango wounded. The injuries are almost always
emotional, soulful and invisible to the untrained observer.
The source of the injury may be similar for men and
women but how each sex wrestles with their agony is different.
I believe that women have a greater capacity for
loving than men do. This is both a blessing and a curse. Their power to love is
so great it can guard the men they love; it has the ability to heal and it can
shine like a cosmic beacon in the night.
When that love is broken, or discarded, it can leave a
woman devastated. It is not the kind of hurt that a man can ever know.
It is my belief that her pain draws other women to her. This is how she ends up
in Tango’s living room: in the arms of
her sisters.
It is not the same for a man. We can be such dogs; coyotes, actually, content
to roam the plains alone, howling internally so that none might be allowed to
share in our pain.
What draws men to the milonga is not heartache, it is emptiness. We arrive alone, seeking
that which is missing.
When a woman is in pain, it seems to me that she winces at everything that
reminds her of the injury. As she recoils, her sisters feel her grimace
empathetically.
Now, picture a room full of men and women. It doesn’t take many women hurting
to cast a cloud over the whole event.
The presence of men aggravates this situation. Our
attendance is both a good thing and a bad thing. The agitation we cause is the
spark that ignites the flames of passion that make tango so addictive.
Allow me to explain a few things about the
fundamental nature of men.
When a man is young, all he can do is break
things. If you throw a roll of bubble wrap into a throng of boys of any age,
every last plastic bubble will be broken in a matter of minutes. It is as if it
were a carcass tossed into a pool of hungry piranhas. If there are rocks, they
will throw them. If nothing is at hand, they will wrestle each other and, when
that is played out, they will insult each other before finally resolving to
grab their testicles and pick their noses.
Our boyish nature never really leaves us.
As
boys become men, we learn that there is much joy to be had in the building of
things. We feel joy because we see it in the faces of the women who surround
us.
Men are genetically programmed to respond to the
emotions of women. When the ladies are happy with our accomplishments, this
causes us to experience pleasure. Even when we are alone, we can picture a
woman smiling at the final results of our efforts and receive gratification
just from the thought itself.
For reasons unknown to me, I rebel against the cloud. When I feel it, I am
compelled to do or say something guy-like. I guess that’s why there are so many
rules in tango: to protect the women from the brutal nature of men.
After seven years of mingling at milongas,
I’ve learned to hide my rough edges. I do this because I am building something.
I am creating the persona of anonymity which is necessary for a good tango
embrace with a total stranger.
If I am smooth, I can be anybody she wants me to be.
If I am in control of myself, she can dance with me unencumbered by her
repulsion towards my abrasive side.
Experienced tangueros hide their
brutal side so well that I think women are actually fooled into thinking that
it doesn’t exist. Believe me, it is always there.
It seems to me that the cloud of the wounded is one of the reasons why tango is
so successful all over the world. It is a volatile mist that pervades the room.
The milonga is a place for the
injured to seek refuge. The music and the dance are the salves that heal them.
It is my opinion that women can be hard
on themselves. Some women beat themselves up badly for having loved too deeply.
Loving so strongly is not a thing to be regretted; it is something to be
thankful for. Some people never get that
chance.
Tango allows a woman, for a brief moment in time, to
love hard without the heartache. It gives both men and women the chance to show
the love and the passion that is inside them.
We can’t be afraid of who we are and what we bring
into the room. All we can do, and all we really need to do, is dance.
My book is on sale at amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Fear-Intimacy-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1492357790/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379623458&sr=1-1&keywords=fear+of+intimacy+and+the+tango+cure
No comments:
Post a Comment