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The Gift

Alexis Sixela

He went with her to the tango lesson.  Under duress, maybe, but he went.  It was his wedding anniversary present to her.  She had hesitated choosing between a ring and tango lessons.  At least that's what he thought.  Knowing her taste for expensive rings and love of diamonds, he was happy when she went for the lessons.  Only yesterday did he learn that he was supposed to accompany her.  It was too late to go back to the ring.

Imagine our White Knight in his shining armor with a woman in his arms and unable to perform.  And this is in public!  His ego is badly bruised.   He feels like a child learning to walk.  What he needs is a mother.  He has a problem and he knows it.  It will take real courage for him to get out of his ego armor and tango.

Always his first reaction when facing a problem is to think.  That's why he does not always understand.  He is an engineer.  In his world everything has a shape, a color, a weight.  Logic is everywhere.  He is even blind to fragrance.  His way of going from A to B one step at a time should have helped, but it did not.  She wants to unite while he wants to cut everything into little pieces.  This is not the way to tango with his wife.

Reaching for ideas, he grabs any intellectual speculation available if only it helps with this tango problem.  Everything starts with an idea — doesn't it?  Before you can sit at a table, somebody must have had the idea of a table.  Ideas can solve everything — can't they?  Could it be logical that logic does not apply everywhere?  Is it necessary to leave room for innovation?

And so he thought:  Who got this idea of dancing tango anyway?  It all started with music.  Music was the first form of art that did not need a model — like painting and sculpture had.  Models are from the good old days when the air was clean and sex was dirty.  The fact remains that the visual arts elevate man but music comes down from the Heavens and flows up from inside the body.  Go figure.  Your ear catches the sound of a musical instrument but this is not what you are dancing to.  The sounds resonate in your body like the violin resonates with the vibrations of the strings.  When you dance, you become the violin.  But you have to dance.

Many religions have rhythmic dances to amplify their teachings.  God needs dancers like a composer needs musicians.  He is life's choreographer.  Sufis spin around God.  David danced in front of the altar, much to his wife's distress (Israelites' tunics were short.)  He must have been listening to the music of the spheres.  But that was not tango.

Tango has a beat as well as a melody.  Tango is based on walking, one step per beat.  Simple.  Maybe!  The problem is that a tanguero is walking in all directions.  How can that be compared to walking if our Hero doesn't even know where he is going?  This is pure madness.

The melody is nice.  He doesn't know what they are going to use it for but it is nice.  Dancing close embrace is nice also.  But the real tango problem is that the feet must also move.  What would happen if he kept dancing on the same beat for a long time?  Would his heart follow the beat of the music?  Would his breathing follow the melody?

At class, the instructor makes it look simple.  Our Hero only has to watch and get the steps into his memory.  The muscle memory, that is.  You may have been told that your memory is in your brain.   Mistake!   Mistake!   Nobody is perfect!  Dance memory is in your muscles.  You don't dance tango with your brain.  You dance it with your muscle memory.  Tango steps have to percolate from your brain all the way down to your feet.  That takes time.  And, just to confuse things more, he finds that he is also in charge of her feet.  Do you think that it is easy to concentrate on her feet when her cleavage is in the way?

And, if the spirit of tango is absent, he can't expect recognition.  After a dance his wife will walk away thinking that her feet hurt, that she could find a better partner, that she is the one who has made all the sacrifices surrendering to his lead.

After his struggles, our White Knight will have to admit, sooner or later, that thinking is not the answer.  It is an excuse.  His ego is in the way and that's where the real problem is.  The spoiled little boy has to be sent to his room.  This is a lesson every man has to learn before he can learn tango.  It is also the best present he could offer his wife.

If only he could dance with his eyes closed, like she does. Looking over their heads he sees two souls giving each other a massage.  The music takes them back to Heaven.  Feet don't hurt anymore.  She is beautiful, the world is beautiful, harmony is everywhere.  He is a different person, in a different world.  His ego has been completely deflated.  He can push his thinking aside.  He is filled with beauty.  He is getting civilized.   The ring can wait.

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Alexis Sixela, pseudonym for a Seattle-area tanguero, is a semi-retired engineer.  After dancing tango for three years, his ego is nearly deflated.

Copyright © Alexis Sixela, 2003

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