Tango: A Meditation
“Tango will change your life,” is what he said. He was a teacher and performer who appeared at my son’s Oakland Youth Orchestra fundraiser some six or seven years ago. We were at the Greek Orthodox Church on Lincoln Boulevard.
The theme of the night was “Tango” because the orchestra was going to Buenos Aires. That was just luck. In prior years, they’d gone to all manner of locations — including Scotland, for example. Who knows. Maybe I would have passionately fallen into Scottish horn-piping’s embrace. But, I doubt it.
You see, there was something about the tango… but it wasn’t the tango itself that captivated me. Not at all. In fact, I’d never been attracted to dance before. Me and dance were like oil and water. We decidedly did not go together. Dancing scared the bejesus out of me. All of my life, I had felt not just unnatural when I tried to dance, but grotesque. All of my life, or at least from some point in my childhood, I had felt not just awkward when I tried to “dance,” but ashamed, pure and simple.
An all-encompassing shame that bit me to the quick with the rapidity and intensity of a viper strike. Helpless in its throes, I succumbed immediately. My face would flush hot. My body would be covered with a fine sheen of sweat. My mind would seize, falling into a cacophony of confusion, staccato awareness, a strange netherworld characterized by an acute…
