Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires

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The now

February 14, 2010 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 18 comments

When I look at this photograph, taken at the precise second that a thousand rose paper petals exploded into the air around me on February 11th 2010, I see the power of now (for more of what I mean, read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle). The cracking bang, the shock of flying pinks, friends laughing and bursting into Happy Birthday to You… and me, without a second’s thought for the past or the future, filled with utter joy. It’s there in the picture. Proof that in the moment, if my mind is shocked out of thinking about anything at all, freedom can be mine. This is a photo of my spirit soaring, on my 47th birthday, along with that of my friend, TangoCherie.

Forty seven is a big number. I’d like to think that after those many years on the earth, I’d have worked out how to access joy (or at the very least, peace of mind) in any given moment, regardless of circumstance, without the use of party bangers. But I haven’t. The past weeks have shown me that I can still be buffeted all too easily by life situation. Unexpected or unwelcome happenings (real or imagined) can wake up VOD (my Voice of Doom, driven by fear) and he can fast imprison Barbie (Goddess of my self belief and Great Creatress) in the darkest of corners with his relentless and paralysing spiel on the subject of the disastrous nature of my past and the certain gloom of my future – all utter rubbish of course. Thank God that forty seven years alive equals forty seven years of life experience. I’ve been round this Loop of Doom a few times, you see. I therefore know that at least part of the way out of the confusion, is to step outside my over-active mind and get back in touch with the now.

Last night at La Milonga de Los Consagrados, in Centro Región Leonesa, presence in the moment was also mine. I settled into the closest of close embraces of one of my favourite regular dance partners, shut my eyes (because I trust him even on the most packed of dance floors), and allowed myself to forget even the mini-world of that room. It must have been forty degrees under the useless air conditioners and the ineffective overhead fans. I felt his heart beat into my chest and his breath hot near my ear. It was slightly embarrassing to have to peel ourselves apart, clothes kind of sticking to each other, as the fourth tango finished, but during the tango, did I care about that? No. We melted into one, literally with our sweat (sorry if that sounds grim, but truly it is horridly humid in Buenos Aires this summer), but also with our energy. And, in the moment of the melt, nothing else mattered. Bliss was mine. I don’t have photographic evidence of this one, but I do have the memory of having to ‘come round’ and work out the direction to my table when the tanda ended. Oh yes, good tango is one of the things that can put me firmly in the now.

But are party-banger moments, or even whole tandas, of being in the now, enough? Well, not for me. Thing is, I believe that when I am in the moment and nowhere else, I am closest to my core. There I can know my true essence. There I have the opportunity to sense my mission. And the more often I am there, the clearer my life purpose will be to me.

Being fully present when I dance tango, comes easy these days, because I’ve  had a lot of practice. However, in the beginning (2006, UK) it was not so. Far too wrapped up in my own ego: worried about how good I was, what steps I couldn’t do, what my partner was thinking of  me, what the people sitting around the walls of the room were thinking of me, how I wished I was a better dancer, how I was going to go to Argentina and come back and show everyone how brilliant I was… blah, blah, blah. To start with, I had to learn how to ‘void out’ of all that mind stuff and focus on my partner’s lead so that I could feel what to follow. Now, the physical side of dancing comes far more naturally to me, so I don’t have to think about the how, and tango is more a question of a total surrender to the possibility of my soul touching another. I find my tango bliss in a place far deeper than a dance, in a place far beyond the music or the surroundings or the people watching, in a place of pure energy between two exquisitely matched dancers (and the music), that perhaps I can never explain. Back in the days of consciously trying to ‘void out’ in order to follow anything at all, I had no idea of the bliss to come, but I clumsily practised seeking my own absolute presence in the dance anyway, until one day in Buenos Aires, it was mine and I understood.

Today, out there in the world of things, I’m concentrating on setting up a company to publish Happy Tango, I’m considering returning to the UK to promote the book, and along the way I’m learning fast about what it really means in practical terms to try and build a sustainable and workable life between Britain and Argentina. Meanwhile I’m doing my best to step out of my January 2010 Loop of Doom, while building a BubbleWrap-like protection of strategies around myself in order to decrease my chances of hitting such internal lows again.

So how to enjoy life, whatever crops up? I think tango can teach me something here. Quite simply, I need to focus on the now of whatever I am doing, and not allow my mind to head off somewhere scary: writing this blog post but not thinking about how crap it is at the same time; wandering to Barrio Chino with Carlos to enjoy a licuado, while not worrying about the email I need to write to my accountant later; going to sleep listening to my Relax App on my iPod, rather than letting my thoughts run over the list of actions I need to take in the next two weeks so that I can close off the final, final draft of Happy Tango and send it to the designer. These are miniscule examples of times when I need to actively stop myself thinking, in order to enjoy the now. I could offer you hundreds of far more overwhelming tales, but I’m too embarrassed to admit how completely ridiculous my mind can be, once it gets started down a terror filled route… and anyway, maybe you know what I mean, without me saying more, because your thoughts are probably capable of the Loop of Doom too. In any case, I’m actively practising this particular strategy on the smaller stuff, so that the next time my mind wants to latch on to bigger fry, I’ll be able to handle it.

Sometimes in this endeavour, when I find myself in a biggish situation filled with uncertainty, I feel that I am very much at the novice stage: consciously having to force myself to focus in the moment rather than be sucked down the path of negative thought about something that hasn’t happened yet. If I keep at it though, perhaps there will come a day when being present in the now of life will come as easily to me as being present in the now of tango.

What do you reckon, is there a chance of it? What strategies do you use to practice living every moment, regardless of your life situation, in joy? And does dancing tango help?

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Warmth

December 31, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 11 comments

from Sallycat and BarbieLast night, as I stood up to leave a Buenos Aires milonga – in a freshly renovated (but chilled to cero grados by blasting air conditioners) traditional venue – a beautiful woman sitting in the front row stopped me and said, I just wanted to say that I read your blog and really enjoy it… or something equally heartwarming (in my delight I have forgotten the precise words she spoke), and brought a huge smile to my slightly frozen cheeks. I was grateful for that kind touch from a stranger in an unfamiliar milonga, and for the other joys that came my way throughout the evening. The two friends I sat with, laughed with, ate chips coated in cheese and herbs with. The man I knew from another venue who danced with me right away and so eased the nerves (yep, I still get them) of being on a huge dance floor surrounded by seated rows of pretty high-powered, serious solo dancers, when the room is half empty and my body is not warmed up. I know it’s supposed to be about only you, your partner and the music – but it isn’t always, if I’m honest: that long line of guys along the wall are having a good reccy to see if they might want to risk you later or strike you straight off their list; so, kicking your partner or tripping over your own feet on a slippery floor because of either nerves or cold muscles is not a good plan, believe you me. The cosiest, most comforting embrace of the later hours, after I’d been sitting out a bit: he actually rubbed my hands and said to me after a couple of tangos, There, I feel the temperature of your heart rising. I left after that because I couldn’t bear to sit and lose the heat again. It was my last tanda of the decade, and I wanted to leave my tango on a high note. And I did, didn’t I? But not really because of him. Rather, because of the unexpected and kind words of the lady on the front row.

Last night was the first time for me (and for many, as it’s only been open for two weeks) at this milonga (though because it had moved from another venue, many regular folk knew each other, of course). My magnetic energy was low because during my bus journey across town a black ink pen in my bag had managed to leak marks all over the front of my green dress, so I had to wear my cardigan pinned in a slightly strange arrangement to cover it up. I was given a seat on the third row because the organiser had never seen me before. It was tough to perform the cabeceo from there and avoid confusion – one woman stood for a cabeceo intended for me on my first tanda, though my guy kindly stuck with me. Plus, truly, some blokes don’t ever look at the third row, well, except perhaps to tease. I did manage to dance a few nice tandas, but there was a fair bit of sitting it out, and as I say, the aircon was a killer… almost drained me of signs of life. It was one of those nights where I had to work hard to feel the love, get dances, see many smiles. The dancing was great, but a lot of the time I was watching it and not doing it. I even grumbled a bit to my friends. Never a good sign. Means my magnetic energy is probably on the floor. And that’s very bad news, because in my experience men are never attracted to dance with women with zero zest. Punto. And frankly I don’t blame them. I knew what was happening and mustered my most positive vibe now and again to achieve a successful cabeceo, but it just wasn’t one of those nights when guys looked at me without some serious effort on my part. Let’s just blame it on the ink pen and the cardigan folks… and move on.

On the way home on the bus, I got to thinking that a decade ago I’d never even heard the word tango, Argentina was just a place on the map of my youth (hooked in with vivid memories of my grandfather yelling abuse at Margaret Thatcher on the telly), and I’d just given up a job teaching primary school children to become a full time housewife in middle, and quite conservative England. Here I am to my surprise and delight, ten years later, living in Buenos Aires, being given an unexpected compliment on my writing by a gorgeous tanguera from the front row (although any row would have been equal in this case), who until that moment, I had never met. Sod the number of dances. Sod the icy blast of the aircon. Sod the pen all over my new dress. I am writing from Buenos Aires, Argentina. My writing touches those I have never met. That is my dream. And it is my reality. Out of the blue, when I least expected it but probably needed it, this lady, who incidentally was wearing a stunning (and totally pen-mark free) dress herself, reminded me of that.

And there was a strange coincidence thing going on with that stranger and me, you see. In the moment she spoke to me, I was about to speak to her to tell her that I loved her dress. Despite my chilly night, I had just watched her dancing and made a tiny decision to be warm too. Our decisions met. Our intentions. Her words to me. Mine to her. Mutual warmth connecting rows of seats, different nationalities, unique human beings on their own adventurous and equally special paths. By the time I went to bed last night, I knew that The Universe took me to sit in that milonga fria, just for that. Knowledge of the power of warmth.

In 2010 I am going to do my best to be warm-hearted. I am going to tell people when they do something that inspires me. I am going to thank people who say something that helps me. I am going to try to remember that when I decide to reach out with a written word or a spoken word or a deed of love, even the intention might be enough to create an opportunity, a meeting, a conversation, even a thought that I otherwise would never have had. It might also put a much needed smile on someone else’s face, and the world might just get a teeny bit happier as a result.

So, on the eve of a new decade which rather splendidly will include the year 11, I (Sallycat and Barbie captured above in the Palermo sunshine, connected by what I think are a pair of sunglasses or, in my dreams, a magic white-winged butterfly) yell,

Let’s hear it for warmth!

And if you’re listening at La Nacional, Turn down the damn aircon and perk us all up a bit! Gracias.


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The Christmas post

December 21, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Expat in Buenos Aires | 17 comments

Santa CarlosChristmas already? I shrieked to my mum in the Debenhams department store of the Bullring Shopping Centre, Birmingham, England. It was the first week in September 2009. I made Carlos line up with the Santas for a laugh and to capture absolute proof that, in the country of my birth, the commercial powers that be seem to want our lives to be nothing more than chapters of shopping (and, dare I say it, looking ever forward to some future event): early September to December 24th – Christmas paraphanalia in the shops; from December 25th to end January – ads on the TV for summer holidays, monthly magazines (encouraging us to take up knitting, painting plates or collecting china), and cut-price leather sofas; February to Easter Sunday – chocolate eggs on supermarket shelves; from the first sign of sun, even though it might still be barely below freezing – BBQs, BBQ coals and garden furniture on service station forecourts; from the moment the schools break up in July for the summer break – Back to School clothes in shop windows; and that takes us neatly back to bumping into Father Christmas in Debenhams all over again. Plus of course we’re encouraged to give plenty of cards, costing a packet and a few trees, for all manner of random occasions. Bah humbug! And, yes, I guess I am. As my years have advanced I confess I’ve edged towards being anti the celebrating of events (even the ones I believe in) with things. It wasn’t always that way though. I mean, I do remember the first Christmas I spent with my ex-husband, back in the early 1990s, when I sulked for hours (or was it days) because he hadn’t got me a Christmas card. Blimey, was that really me? Sorry Mike.

Last night, just a few days before Christmas Eve (which is the big date in Argentina), I crossed the city on the 29 bus from Palermo to San Telmo on my way to and from dancing with my love at the relaxed and warm-vibed La Milonga del Indio in Plaza Dorrego. OK, Avenida Santa Fe was chocca, especially around the Alto Palermo Shopping Mall, and I saw a big Christmas tree with lights on it near the Obelisco, where a very non-Christmassy car event (according to a taxi driver I spoke to later) was taking place. In Argentina, I have noticed, Chrimbo passes in thirty minutes of fireworks at midnight on the 24th, rather than in months of carol singing – or indeed, in any rendition of my old favourites, like Once in Royal David’s City, at all.

So, in the absence of the Queen’s speech to look forward to, what shape can Christmas take for a British tango dancer in Buenos Aires? Well, if you want to dance you can. Tango doesn’t stop here, even for the birthday of Jesus. This year, after the big steak-in-mushroom-sauce feast cooked by C., I could be trying Salon Canning, open from 1am to 6am for the Milonga de Jazmines en el Pelo y algún brillo en la ropa… (Jasmine in your hair and something shiny in your clothes…), organised by Julia and Pedro so that ‘No-one has to be alone over these holidays’ (a sentiment I like, a lot). Transport might be a bit of a problem, as everything stops (yes, even in Buenos Aires) for a few hours around midnight as the 24th becomes the 25th and the fireworks shock every living creature awake, but lucky for me, I can walk to Canning if I want. And, by the time I emerge into the dawn of Christmas morning, the buses and taxis will be back in action. And if I do dance all night, I’ll probably sleep through most of the hot sunshine on Christmas Day, and won’t even notice that my family aren’t with me, that there’s no turkey with cranberry sauce or crackers crammed with paper hats at lunch, and that La Reina Elizabeth isn’t on the telly at 3 o’clock. I’ll still miss them all, though. Perhaps more than I care to admit.

Meanwhile, anoche, Me and C. stepped out on to the temporary Plaza Dorrego dance floor, rolled out beneath strings of coloured lights, and whirled our way through the warm air, creating our own blissful breeze with a few valses, tangos and milongas… we giggled as our feet caught in the taped joins, we recognised familiar faces in the crowd, we celebrated the fact that the people of San Telmo have something similar to our beloved La Glorieta (in Belgrano), and we joined them dancing in it. Swirling a vals together under a cloudless sky, the stars and the slim moon in late December? Not a bad Chrimbo present, I reckon. It might not have been wrapped in Christmas paper nor left under a huge real tree. It might not have been printed on card nor delivered by the postman. It might only have cost a few pesos thrown into a passed-around gorro (hat). But, it sure as hell said, Happy Christmas, loud and clear, to me. And, let’s face it, it’s not just any present is it? It’s my present, my life, chosen for me, by myself. If I don’t embrace it and love it, then I’ve only got myself to blame.

I hope you guys enjoy your presents too. I’m sorry you couldn’t give Happy Tango (my book, Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires) as a Christmas gift this year, but despite me working round the clock for months, it just wasn’t ready. And maybe it won’t quite make the January sales either. But, printed in time for Easter? A definite possibility. Reading a bit of Sallycat while munching on a huge Galaxy Easter egg? Sounds the perfect combination to me. Something delightful to look forward to in that normally-rather-dull ‘world shopping calendar’ I mentioned. Though, now I’m falling into the trap of getting ahead of myself in the world of things too. Instead, let me just stick with the here and now, Navidad 2009…

Happy Christmas, one and all, wherever you are in the world – from me,

Sallycat, in Buenos Aires

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Playtime

November 8, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires | 19 comments

serious tango unoHe came into my life like so many people do these days – with a comment.

It wasn’t on this blog. Rather, it was on my Nextstop.com Buenos Aires Guide. And it announced itself as being from Sun Valley, Idaho. You can probably imagine the sort of thing, Coming to Buenos Aires… need advice about tango lessons for beginners… got your name from blah, blah, blah. Nothing new there. But, in a master stroke (which surely indicated to me that he knew something of the workings and fragility of an artist’s ego), he added, You have an outrageous web site–really great!

Now, it was in a week when I was pretty tied up (or should I say drowning) in the first round of my post-edit book revisions, and I had almost zero enthusiasm for emailing with faceless folks in another hemisphere. But, since flattery definitely gets you further than no flattery, he stuck in my mind, and I ended up sending a brief email and suggesting he might try my good friend TangoCherie and her partner Ruben.

A few emails ping-ponged between the Americas after that because, in the game of responding to enquiries from people planning trips to Buenos Aires, one Which? What? or Why? inevitably leads to another. And in this particular case, by the second round of them, there were a few slightly unusual (between total strangers asking and answering travel-agent style queries), personal-ish questions from him, like, What are you reading at the moment?

In my slightly stressed stay-away-from-me mood of the hour, I confess that I wanted to retort, Why the hell are you asking me that? Bugger off! Questions about what I like to read, always did have the potential to panic me, even in person – I was more Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie than Charles Dickens or the Brontes, you see. When, weeks later, he asked if he could bring me anything from the USA, I suggested a Julia Cameron volume I hadn’t yet read. He didn’t email me back, and I thought I’d never hear from him again. A couple of Saturdays down the line,  in Los Consagrados, at the table of Cherie y Ruben, I found myself being introduced to a man called Neil, and his beautiful daughter. I’ve got a book for you, he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and out of his rucksack he pulled, The Vein of Gold.

I don’t know if you can imagine what it’s like when a complete stranger unexpectedly brings, all the way from their far-away land, a longed-for gift that you never thought you’d own. But, to give you an idea… I’ve just been waiting over two weeks for a parcel from my mum that contains my Spiced Chocolate L’Oreal Excell 10 Minute Hair Colour, and my new Moo cards: it cost £18 to send, it’s now well past its scheduled arrival date and I’ll probably never see it, ever, ever, ever… Aaaaargh-entina. Never mind The Vein of Gold, he was actually delivering gold – not only in the form of a new book to help me keep believing in and following The Artist’s Way, but also in his generosity, and in my surprise and delight to be on the receiving end of it.

By the time the night was out we were giggling a lot and spilling some honest beans: he’d advised me to keep the ’sexiest skirt in the milonga’, but lose the clashing top (he has a background in fashion, apparently); I’d told him that his questions (which, by then, I’d realised, revealed nothing more than the curiosity of a playful soul) about the contents of my bookshelf had almost had me legging it to Antartica.

We’ve met a few times since then. This Saturday gone, we ended up posing for the camera - Oh please do the tango leg thing for me, I want to show my mates back home! Naturally, I did protest a bit with some, Oh I can’t, we’re in a traditional milonga, what will the world think? type stuff. Oh, live a little, Sallycat! he replied. When I saw the picture, I laughed (and so did Carlos, who met (and did not punch) Neil at the far more informal Milonga Loca last night). In the photo: almost the whole of Los Consagrados dancing the Chacarera; and me and the guy from Idaho, who, it turned out, is full of sunshine energy as well as personal questions, having a ‘larf’. Anyone watching me? Not a damn soul. All far too busy having their own parties.

Want to see the whole picture?

Well, before I show you. let me give you an update on the progress of Happy Tango. I’m over half way through the post-edit revisions. I’ve got a talented tanguero from Oz checking the male perspective, and a tanguera sub-editor making sure that my punctuation is as perfecto as possible. There’s seemingly endless printouts of pages covered in red pen, mid-afternoon and late-night research reccies to milongas, and mucho work still to be done. At times it feels exhausting and never-ending, but the fact is that I have never loved crafting anything this much in my entire life. And en camino I’m learning to balance the work with play.

So, in the interests of spreading a few playtime smiles around the globe this Monday morning, I’ll share the full body shot now – Mr Sun Valley and Barbie, in a serious tango pose. And just for the record, here in Buenos Aires in November 2009, it’s a damn fine life.


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The journey

November 1, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 4 comments

8.45am on a Sunday. La Glorieta. Me. Carlos. Julie-Anne Cosgrove (fellow Brit, friend and photographer fabulosa) behind the camera. Despite the heat, I’m in several layers of clothes that will allow me to strip off into different outfits without revealing my knickers to the whole of Belgrano. I’m also in two minds about whether I am made of sufficient ‘model material’ to enable me even to contemplate appearing on the cover of my own book. Carlos is wearing a black DJ bought in a UK charity shop and has the awkward gait of a man who is wondering why I’ve dragged him out of bed at such an ungodly hour on his only day off.

Thankfully there are just the three of us in the bandstand. The Sunday I did the reccy it was a morning after heavy rain, I arrived to find a man sleeping on a cardboard sheet directly beneath the centre peak of the roof, and he did not stir until the 10am Tai Chi class turned up.

We all breathe sighs of relief that for at least an hour La Glorieta is ours and ours alone, and we set to work. None of us have a clue what we’re doing with respect to to what makes a good book cover shot, or how we are ever going to portray what I actually mean by Happy Tango. So we say, Let’s just start somewhere, anywhere, and see what happens. We make Carlos dance to the music in his head, with his knees bent so that the camera can see my whole face. Because I am convinced that my arms are my worst feature, I decide to keep my cardi on, and eventually we check the images and find we’ve caught the lovely romantic shot from which I cropped the above. I am delighted because I’ve always rather fancied owning a pic like that (like the ones you always see of strangers on other people’s websites) of me dancing, but as far as the book cover goes it doesn’t shout my rather joyous meaning of Happy Tango (on the outside anyway) to any of us.

We decide to try a slightly more open embrace, but Carlos just can’t seem to grasp the need to be dancing with what feels like oceans of space between his heart and mine, while turning me into the camera’s gaze, while dancing on the tiles marked by the gorgeous shadows from the railings, while laughing (or at least smiling). Take five? suggests the calm Julie-Anne and Carlos spontaneously launches into singing and dancing the Chacarera.


I strip off a layer of clothes and go from black to red. We sit on the steps ourselves and start to play. We talk about how I want to make a little video: a clip to go on YouTube, or even an audio podcast of the story of how the book came to be, a little interview with myself – just for fun, for creativity’s sake, for the laugh we’d have doing it. I take my tango shoes off, hold them in my hand. Carlos starts acting: chatting me up after the milonga, inviting me for ‘coffee’ – in Spanish, in broken English, in jest. Julie-Anne snaps away. We sit him on the railings and he does it all over again, and again.

It’s almost ten by now and the Tai Chi-ers start to arrive with their bright yellow banners and so do two mates of mine who’ve been up all night dancing, but who’d promised to come and help us if they could. They are young, happy, and add a freshness to our mix. I start directing: you up on the railings, this hand here, that leg there, you two a bit farther apart, 1-2-3-laugh… er Carlos, I said laugh... God knows what the pictures are going to be like but I find myself loving every minute. Perhaps I should start directing photo shoots when I’m not writing, indulge my ‘little Miss Bossy’ side.

Afterwards the five of us walk up Echeverria towards coffee and medialunas, and I say,

Guys. Stop a minute… I’ve just got to tell you. I am sooo happy. I need to pinch myself that this is my life… When I think back to the day I arrived here… knew no-one… could barely dance a step. Now I’ve nearly written a tango guide book for God’s sake. And I’m here with you all, photo shooting in La Glorieta for the cover. Bloody hell!

I shout the Bloody hell! bit, like I always do when I’m excited, and I know that my friends understand me. We hug right there on the pavement. We celebrate. We have to. We know that the streets of Buenos Aires aren’t paved with gold, and some days it’s impossible even to find a few monedas never mind a bucketful of self belief. We are the friends who see each others tears too.

Later in the week I see the photos. I love them all (thank you, thank you Julie-Anne). A few tell us that we’ve hit on ideas that could work. One of them I can even see on the book. But we think we need to tweak, explore, try again when the sun is not quite so bright. So the journey continues, one day at a time.

And I say thanks to my morning in La G. It’s confirmed what I already know but what I also sometimes need to be taught all over again. For sure I won’t stop imagining Happy Tango in your tango shoe bags or ploughing through the redraft that will get it there, but I might be knocked over by a Buenos Aires bus before the book is ever printed. Joy en camino is my mission.

If you’d like to see a few of my own snaps of La Glorieta on reccy day and on photo-shoot day, check out my flickr PhotoSet called La G.


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En route to Happy Tango

October 19, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 19 comments

imgp06381Last weekend the completed (and bloody brilliant) professional edit of my book Happy Tango: Sallycat’s Guide to Dancing in Buenos Aires landed in my inbox all the way from Edinburgh, UK. Since then I’ve not had time to drop a line to my mum never mind to spend several hours composing a blog entry. Two weeks ago I was saying that I needed movement in my life: I sure as hell got it.

Have you ever seen a book edit? It’s very colourful. That is, if you like a bright shade of red. Your words crossed through; the editor’s suggestion alongside, shouting at you in the colour of peligro. Sometimes it’s just a question of incorrect or weak grammar, punctuation, or phrases replaced with superior stuff. Other times it’s far more complicated: a chapter that may have to to move; a section that needs to be re-written; pages that just do not work at all. I’d already seen a sample edit of my work so it wasn’t a shock, but even so, when you’re looking at 200 pages of crossed-through text and red type… it took me twenty four hours to pluck up the courage to open the file in the first place, about two hours to read the whole thing through, and possibly less than one second to click ‘Close’ while wondering if I’d ever open it again. Did you really think you could write a book? whispered VOD, as I headed downtown on the number 60 bus to dance tango and forget about the whole damn thing.

These days though, I bounce back with the zest of the orange Space Hopper I rode as a child of the seventies, and by Monday morning Me and Barbie couldn’t wait to get started on the required post-edit redraft. It was as if a fairy landed on my pillow on Sunday night and magicked all my doubts away. Maybe it was the fact that I allowed myself the weekend to formulate my plan of attack – start at page 1, transform as many words as I can each day and see how it goes; maybe it was the fact that a generous friend in Buenos Aires offered to help me resolve any outstanding dilemmas as they crop up; maybe it was the fact that on Saturday night I ran into a tango tourist who seemed completely at a loss (on her second visit to BsAs) as to how to achieve a successful cabeceo. It was definitely in part because my editor, followed up the edit with a rather marvellous email reassuring me that you only ever see the red stuff when you read it through the first time; he also mentioned that he was proud to be involved – Mike Stocks – the rather fabulous, talented British author of White Man Falling, who is now working on his next novel, The Melancholy School of Tango happy to be involved with my book… now I’m telling you, that is motivating with a capital M. In return for his belief in me, I want to give him reason to be proud, and for that I need to follow through on his work, and make the thing the best it can possibly be.

So since Monday, the floor around my desk has been strewn with sheets of my manuscript, maps of Buenos Aires, printouts of thumbnails of photos that might be suitable for the front cover image… by Friday night I’d got to the end of Part 2 (of 4) and averaged, per day, ten hours at the laptop and twenty hours with my head in the book’s content… I did switch off thinking about it when I was in the tango embrace, I promise.

It was in October 2008 – and now over a year ago – that I first told you, with Barbie enthusiasm but possibly without a single word committed to paper, of my intention to write this book. I had absolutely no idea of what I was letting myself in for: how long it actually takes to write 80000 words in the first place and how many hours can be consumed re-writing them until they are worthy of being read by a paying customer; how many times you will hurt, question, doubt, fire up, close down, think you are losing your mind, as helpful people tell you what it should be, shouldn’t be, can be and can’t be; how much self belief you need in order to never give up. Sometimes I don’t think I will ever finish. When doubts flood in, I force myself into dreamlands: me in Cafe Richmond on Florida, someone on the next table with Happy Tango open between their medialunas de manteca and cafe con leche, making notes in their own tiny black moleskin notebook as I’d have done when I first arrived here; someone across from me on the Subte, Happy Tango on their knee, a smile of understanding or relief or amusement spreading across their face; me pushing my bag under the table in a milonga and seeing the book I wrote peeping out of someone’s tango shoe bag.

Am I full of ego to imagine scenes like this? Scenes where people are using my book. Scenes where I notice them using it. Scenes where they are enjoying using it. Maybe I am full of ego. But so bloody what? I am learning that when you are working on the path of your dream, you have to keep it alive with whatever means, including painting yourself to be a hero with super-powers (of the sort that can turn everyone’s first Buenos Aires tango holiday into one full of complete and utter joy). Ha! Who cares if it’s reality or not? It’s a means to an end. And in this case the end will never be even remotely possible, if I don’t find ways to keep going.

So this week, I’ll be transforming Part 3 of Happy Tango into the words that people will finally read. On Wednesday I’ll be getting to see the photographs we took on Sunday morning in La Glorieta, one of which might possibly make it onto the front cover. And I’ll be keeping my dreamland mental images, as described above and starring some of you, firmly in my mind at all times. For a while I might not be able to write on this particular page with quite the regularity I once did, but I promise I haven’t abandoned you: I’m just working with passion towards one of my dreams. And since living your dreams is really what this little blog called Sallycat’s Adventures is all about, I know that you guys, who read it regularly, will understand.

Hasta as pronto as I possibly can,

Sallycat

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Movement

October 4, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 27 comments

Four weeks after my trip to the UK I find myself wanting to push my boundaries. Wake myself up. Be the adventurer that I know I am born to be. Sometimes I can only do it in tiny ways (ways that don’t involve spending hundreds of pounds on flights around the globe), but I can still do it. I decide on a Buenos Aires milonga I’ve been meaning to try for at least a year. I take the 60 colectivo across the city and arrive in Congreso about six, early evening: pay my $15pesos; get three raffle tickets for two different draws; exchange my coat for a number; change my shoes in the Damas; receive warm welcomes all round. A lady in the loos even gives me a yummy chocolate eclair type toffee. The hostess shows me to a single empty seat in the second row (of two), behind a full to bursting front line. I beam a smile to both sides as I squeeze through crossed legs and stilettos. Alas (and I confess, because I have a soft heart, that it places a tiny dent in my joy) my fellow tangueras look straight through me. Once I might have shrunk in confidence. Not anymore. Truth is I believe in myself these days. There’s that, and the fact that I’ve already spotted three men I know.

By the time the next tanda begins I’m ready. A foreigner male pal of mine is on the table dead opposite me, in the second row (so let’s call him SecondRow), back against the wall. We make eye contact, and he grins. There are already dancers on the floor and it’s a stretch to keep him in my sights. I lose his eyes. Find them. He nods. Lose him. Find him. I nod. All going swimmingly. Then the Argentine bloke sitting in front of my friend gets up.

It all happens muy rapido and I don’t quite know how I do it, but I clock almost instantly that this man (let’s call him FrontRow) thinks I have nodded or smiled or something, at him. I also realise that I know him, dance with him every week somewhere else, kissed him hello in the hall ten minutes earlier as I was paying the entrada. I would have given him my best mirada later of course, but haven’t actually done so yet.

For a milli-second I am stuck in a freeze frame of uncertainty. I consider abandoning SecondRow just because I can’t bear the idea of anyone being stranded on the dancefloor without a partner, and SecondRow is not actually on his feet yet. Then my thoughts tumble, No! I won’t do it. I can’t. My contract is with SecondRow. He knows it. I know it. I wanted him. He wanted me. We’ve done the nods…

More bodies are on the floor. Maintaining eye contact with SecondRow around the dancers makes me wish I had the neck of a giraffe, but I manage to reassure him with my gaze and he gets up. FrontRow must see me staring at SecondRow because he sits down and apparently, I learn later from SecondRow mutters, Mujeres.

FrontRow then ignores me for the entire session. I even look at him for vals, but he refuses to bite. I know he knows I try, but he avoids. Punishing me? I reckon so, and I doubly reckon so when my girlfriend arrives a couple of hours later and he almost immediately dances with her. Will he still be punishing me next week? It won’t break my heart if he does, but it will make me sad. Everyone can make a mistake, and in this case I have to say that I don’t really think that the mistake was mine. I know who I looked at. And I had my glasses on.

I do enjoy the evening. Gorgeous traditional venue. Music that pulls me from my chair again and again. Gentlemen who I feel would forgive me anything on the basis of the shine in their eyes as they pull away from our tandas. Yet, I can’t help allowing FrontRow into my thoughts on the bus home. How he could barely bring himself to nod goodbye to me… so serious, so wounded, so out of proportion. Or so it seems to me. Couldn’t we have smiled, laughed, passed off the cock-up as just one of those things?

Months ago in another milonga, I managed to arrive on the dance floor to discover two men waiting for me, and not just any two men. Two men from the same prime front row table. Two men I’d been trying to land for weeks. Mortified, I explained to the one that I hadn’t looked at him… He cabeceo-ed me the very next tanda. Now that is what I call a gentle man.

Maybe my reaction is out of proportion to the unimportance of the events, but the episode with FrontRow puts me off the tango scene for a day or two. This weekend I abandon the dance that brought me to Argentina, and escape on the Semi-Rapido 60 bus to Escobar for the annual National Fiesta de la Flor (that’s the equivalent of the Chelsea Flower Show to us Brits). And bloody marvellous it is too. In amongst the orange Gerberas and the wafting smells of parilla-grilled beef, I find a knitwear designer who was possibly born to knit me the wedding coat of my dreams. I also spot a Barbie-inspired over the top cream floral sphere that brings the glitterballs of the Buenos Aires milongas to my mind and has me conjuring images of a massive globe of blooms hanging from the roof of La Glorieta on our special day… and now I am dreaming I know, but a dear friend has put the idea in my mind and I can’t help it. Where better for Me and C. to do the public bit of our knot-tying than in the bandstand in the park where we met? Course I need to work out how to get permission from El Gobierno de la Ciudad, or at least from the Belgrano City Council, but hey… if we actually manage to get our papers in order to wed in the first place, I’m sure that part would be a breeze. Wouldn’t it?

Ah well, maybe now I am digressing into fairytales. Nice one though no? And blessedly I’m now far, far, far from the little wolfcub in sheep’s clothing that was the genteel Buenos Aires milonga where this wee tale began. Sometimes you just gotta get away from all those cabeceos and codigos. Or at least balance them with something mucho removed. Yesterday it was the Flower Show in Escobar, and you can see the full picture story of our rather fabulous day out (including the ones of me posing in my new bruja-black designer knit) right here on Flickr. Next week it could be Temaiken. Or Lujan. Perhaps I’m entering a new phase of living in Argentina (at two years six months) involving exchanging the colectivos for the semi-rapidos and venturing beyond the city walls. And a good thing too I reckon. Flowers. Flight. Fresh air. Freedom.

In a strange twist of synchronicity today, a gorgeous girl I know in Buenos Aires sent me a Martha Graham quote. I’ve already got one on my wall. This one I’ve never seen. Here it is.

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.

I like it. Once in a previous life, I was stuck. I never want to be stuck again. And right now movement in my mind, seems to require movement in my physical world. So I’ll do it. Maybe in small ways. But I’ll do it. And thus, I will ensure that my soul will never again lose its glorious multi-coloured wings.

Where are you flying today? Do tell. I’d love to hear.


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Yes!

August 30, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, Sallycat back in the UK | 38 comments

IMGP5634 A few short years ago when I was around forty years old I thought I knew what happiness was: I called it peace of mind.

Basically in those days I sought calm between my ears: a clear conscience born of both doing my best to be good and being grateful for what I had; no major money worries; life ordered and under control. Occasionally I’d allow my soul to speak on the page – and judging by the poems that it penned, it was very angry and rather sad. Funnily enough I called the style of my poetry ‘my voice’, but I didn’t listen to it at all – just carried on writing anger from the inside, kept life on the outside in the pretty English countryside as untroubled as possible, and believed that on the days when my mind was without too much anxiety, I was happy.

Thank God I had it all wrong.

These days peace of mind can come along for the ride if it wants, but I’m settling for nothing less than pure, unadulterated joy! And last Saturday, in a community centre in the Shropshire town where I was born, people who have known me since I first walked on this earth, saw with their own eyes that I have at last claimed it for myself. Indeed I was brimming over with it… shining eyes occasionally welling up; a grin that did not care about showing every one of my crooked teeth; an open heart that wanted to chat to strangers and friends alike all night long.

The circumstances? Pretty bloody brilliant as it happens…

P1070346 On Saturday morning, in the kitchen of my childhood home, the love of my life, mi amor C. asked my parents (in the most adorable Spanglish you can possibly imagine) for my hand… and my Mum hugged him tight and said, Yes! A thousand times, Yes!

On Saturday night, in the auspicious glow of his own joyous Golden Wedding celebrations, my Dad announced to the assembled guests that to his delight, Me and C. would be tying the knot as soon as Argentine bureaucracy allows. Later we danced for all 111 friends and family present – Café Dominguez (D’Agostino, tango) and Pobre Flor (De Angelis, vals): it felt like I was floating on a cloud with an angel. Afterwards people sought us out to congratulate us, tell us how we’d conjured magic and tears as we’d danced, shake C.’s hand, welcome him into the family that I love beyond words.

So joyful circumstances? Oh God yes!

And at last, at the grand old age of forty six I finally know I’m ready for them.

How do I know it? Because for the past three years I’ve left the quest for finding peace of mind in my wake and have instead been following my heart in pursuit of joy. My journey so far has led me from Hampshire, England to Mongolia to Argentine Tango to Buenos Aires to Carlos to this moment back in Shropshire. As I’ve travelled I’ve learned that joy isn’t about circumstances or places or other people, though of course they can be beautiful bonuses along the way, it’s about being true to myself and saying yes to the longings of my soul… if I do that, then of course I’ll feel joy: my soul will be connected with what it needs to thrive. Plus, in reply to my own efforts, the universe will respond by putting in my path the stuff that can help me in my quest, even when it’s stuff that I might never have imagined (or thought I wanted) in my wildest dreams for myself.

When I look back to the days before I’d heard of Argentine Tango, I’d have considered it utterly ridiculous even to fantasise that in 2009 I might be living in Argentina, marrying a darling of an Argentine, receiving warm and rapturous applause for my dancing from an English audience, standing on the verge of publishing a book for tango tourists… ridiculous, impossible, dreamland type stuff. But it wasn’t was it?

A few sweet and delighted people have lovingly used the words fairytale ending (referring to my bit of a climb from less joyful places) to describe my forthcoming marriage to C., but of course both they and we know it’s really just the beginning of a whole new Sallycat’s Adventure isn’t it? Or at least it’s simply a moment on the way that marks the start of the next chapter in the tale you’ve been reading on this blog since my very first entry in January 2007. I reckon it’s a damn happy moment though, whichever way you look at it.

So by way of recording this latest step on my path of the heart, here are a couple of photos of me celebrating the story so far, dancing with C. for my family and friends last Saturday night.

I don’t know if you can see it. Carlos felt it. I felt it. The audience saw it. Somewhere in there, at the very heart of what it’s possible to capture on camera, is love.

IMGP5654-2

sal y c 1 

Tango will change your life, my teacher said to me at my first tango lesson. It sure as hell has hasn’t it? And to every single change it has brought me, I am shouting loud and clear across the world to you all today, Yes, yes, yes!

And guys, I will be absolutely over the moon if you join in.

 

Sallycat

 

Photo credits for the black and white close ups go to a lovely lady called Anne, who managed both to capture our expressions in the exact moment that my dad told the world our news on Saturday night, and to take the first ever decent pic of me dancing tango with C. where I am not wearing a coat. Thank you Anne.

(I know some of you asked for a video, and I’m working on it. Alas my little sis didn’t make it to the camera in time to get a whole dance… but if I can salvage something from somewhere, I will.)

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Friends

July 21, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 16 comments

IMGP5917 I won’t dance milonga with anyone else while you are away.  I promise. I will wait for you to come back!

That had me laughing as I made my reluctant loop around the tables to say farewell to my wonderful and treasured Monday afternoon partners. Every one of them hugged me as if I was their daughter (Anton, I ain’t including you in that matey ‘coz you’re only 21 I know) and made me promise to come back. They sent love to my parents. They spoke my name. Their eyes told me they’d miss me. Mine said, Me too.

My ‘Lunes boys’ only know me as Sali or Sale or something vaguely in the same ballpark as my name: they know that I love vals above all else; they know that on Monday afternoons I am theirs; they know that for eight weeks I will be gone. Today they asked me to return. When it was time for a final kiss blown back towards the marble columns and the smooth stone floor and the notes of D’Arienzo, I had to kick myself out into Suipacha…

It was mid evening dark in the street and the red neon Ideal TANGO light was lit. I crossed the road and looked up at it. Sal, I said,  Smile you idiot. How would you be feeling if you were leaving for good, for a year, for months and months? I thought for a second of all the girlfriends who have had to say that goodbye to Buenos Aires. I felt fortunate. Hey, I’ll be back in eight weeks my old friend, I said into the night, to the light.

After that I wandered into Diagonal Norte and zigzagged around crossing wide Avenidas a few times to avoid entering the Subte: didn’t want to say Chau to the beautiful Obelisco either. Sal, it’ll still be here. You’ll be walking towards it all the time… you could keep on going round the world right? Straight on, don’t stop, Obelisk always waiting. I chuckled at myself. I got on the subway.

An hour later I pushed open the door of  El Empujòn del Diablo (super place for a spot of locro and folk music), summoned my mental magnifying glass to try and recognise strangers I’ve only seen on their teeny Twitter photos… and within minutes I’d added fresh and fascinating faces to my Monday and to the future. I never get tired of the kind of meet ups or should I say in this case ‘tweet-ups’ that start with words like, Are you thefutureisred? to a sparkly-eyed woman with an angelic child on her knee and a gorgeous husband at her side.

By the time I left them and GoingLocalTravel, CasaSaltshaker and SilverStarCar at midnight, I was walking on cloud nine rather than Avenida Santa Fè. We’d talked over the surely Barbie-inspired generous and trusting world of CouchSurfing: how folk offer their couches to others on the move… think you can’t afford to travel? Think again. Lately I’ve been hearing the words Couch and Surfing in the same breath too many times to ignore them, and I’m starting to wish I actually had a couch that didn’t turn into my own bed every night… Welcoming strangers into your home? Strangers becoming friends? Friends returning the favour? It’s happening all over the planet apparently, and especially in Buenos Aires. Check it out.

Lying next to a warm C. later, as the storm (which is still raging this morning) broke over my home, I thought of the stranger I danced with in Ideal yesterday. How he sat alone at a table in an immaculate beige suit. How he danced only two or three tandas all afternoon. How he cabeceo-ed me for the vals. How he spun me in the magic that only the most Gandalf-like tango wizards can deliver. How I pulled away at the end unable to do anything but laugh with joy and ask, Please tell me how long you have been dancing? His eyes shone. He held up fingers – seven, then two. En serio? Seventy two? Then more fingers – eight, nine. Wow! The oldest person I have ever tango-embraced. And, in the strangest twist, his dance included an exquisite little step that only Carlos ever leads… no-one else ever, ever, ever: just mi gran amor, and now, my eighty-nine year old magician. The universe telling me that everything is exactly as it is meant to be.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Lightening. Thunder. Memories of Monday. Excitement about Viernes. Hugging my dream dancer of Hampshire at Terminal 5. Dancing at Negracha in London this Friday night. Seeing beloved tangueros and tangueras who have indeed each left Buenos Aires behind in their turn. Now it’s my turn to visit them. But when they are ready to come back, I’ll be here waiting. Just like Buenos Aires and my Monday milongueros will be here for me. Old friends. New friends. Always friends.

Yesterday was the ‘Dia del Amigo’ in Argentina, the ‘Day of the Friend’. It sure as hell turned out to be a day when I ended up thinking about mine. Yes, they may shift in and out of my sight, but my soul never, ever forgets. It’s always ready to reconnect.

So, my dear friends in the UK – those I’ve met and those I’ve not yet met, it seems that Me, and Barbie and VOD and C. and the beautiful touch of Buenos Aires in us all, are on our way…  and we are smiling about it, mucho. Inglaterra, you gorgeous green garden splashed with endless life giving rain, here we come!

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And the first ever Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award (ABBBA) goes to…

June 4, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, Uncategorized | 7 comments

IMGP4028 It happened because I offered to buy a few pairs of men’s tango shoes for friends in Britain. It happened because I finally decided to consider a tango shoe for myself, that I’d previously ruled out because it didn’t look like the CiFs I was used to. It happened because my Spanish is now at a level where I am not so fixated on my own inadequacies that I miss noticing the soul who is speaking to me.  This week my absolutely bloody brilliant Barbie spotted another absolutely bloody brilliant Barbie and the…

images Barbie images Barbie

Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award

was born.

I saw the Barbie too. I saw it in the eyes of the shoe designer who sat in front of me, as he told me that he never stops thinking about how he can make the best tango shoe in the world. I saw it in the inspired and unique interchangeable sole of the 2×4alpie shoe he held in his hand. I heard it in his slightly breathless voice as he told me why, regardless of the horrendous inflation in Argentina and the effect it has on the price of his shoes, he will never compromise on quality.

Afterwards, Me and my Barbie stood shivering in the freezing cold at ‘the quinze’ bus stop in Scalabrini Ortiz, but our excitement kept us warm.

Sallycat, we have to party! trilled Barbie, and she continued in a rush, I mean Sallycat, in the battle against the VODs, you just gotta talk Barbies, and not just your Barbie. You gotta shout about the other Barbies in the world too. Make beautiful Barbie noise, and drown out the VODs! Don’t you think, Sallycat? Oh don’t you? Don’t you? Oh please say you do!

Oh I do. I do.

So I will. With this award. Which I shall give freely, whenever my Barbie wants.

I remember back in 2007 when 2×4alpie was just starting to sell shoes. There was no shop in those days. Chacho was a mate of Ariel’s and he used to bring the shoes to Club Gricel on Saturday nights and we all used to marvel at the interchangeable soles. I was a bit dubious: Would I really want to change the soles? Would the ingenious velcro system actually be strong enough to hold the new sole in place? Wouldn’t the sole catch on uneven floors?

IMGP4037 I did love how the ladies practice shoes were about as far away from the usual clunky trainer style as you could get, made me feel like a princess (I hadn’t discovered Barbie at that point), and came in gold with holes in the upper to let the air flow cool over hot feet. Carlos fell for the wine coloured shoes in the softest leather I had ever touched. There were no ladies tango heels back then and anyway I was buying CiFs. Me and C. couldn’t resist though, and we started our family of 2×4s.

IMGP3955 Ariel often danced in Chacho’s shoes too and he went for the totally cool man designs in black and white or brown and white. Style-wise, I’ve never seen anything to compare anywhere else, to be honest. Maybe it’s the shoe shape, maybe it’s the specific pattern of the one leather laid on the other, maybe it’s in the softness of the leathers themselves… I don’t know, but when I see a man in these shoes, I see class, I see trendy, cutting edge… I see a tango dancer who knows what’s what. C. says that when he puts his 2×4s on he is transformed, becomes a bit of a ‘lad’ apparently, a dancer with attitude. In other words, his own dancing Barbie likes the shoes too.

Last year at the BsAs Tango Festival in Harrods I did try on a pair of the women’s tango shoes. I wanted them because they were the most comfortable I had ever put on my dancing feet, but I was still umming and ahhing about whether I liked the thicker than CiF heels. A male British mate of mine, let’s call him Greg, was with me that day, and he did splash out in the men’s department. He took his first ever pair of black suede 2×4s back to tango Britain. Was he the first Brit tourist to buy? Not sure, but I came away happy that Chacho’s gorgeous shoes would see the south of Inglaterra at least.

IMGP3969 Now I’m headed back to Britain in July, and Greg has asked for two more pairs of 2×4s: the proof of the pudding as they say… and so I make my visit to the shop this week, because yes, there is now a 2×4 shop. This time I try on the women’s tango shoes again. I’ve come along way on my tango journey in the ten months since the trip to Harrods last August. I no longer care about the width of the heel or the lack of glitter or lace… all I’m interested in is whether I can dance my heart out in this shoe. From the second my foot slips into the black and white pair, I have my answer – this time there is no hesitation.

IMGP4016 Chacho and Me sit in his shop for a bit with some choccie biccies and he shows me the old ladies tango shoe, once the property of a very famous tango dancer, that he took apart when he was working out how to make his shoes. He tells me how the famous lady tango dancer said to him, Make this shoe, but make it better. He shows me the stuff we wearers of tango shoes normally never see: the cardboard inside the shoe base, which eventually cracks and splits with serious dancing; the synthetic upper that looks convincingly like leather but isn’t, the lack of elastic at the buckle or the elastic that has torn with stress. He shows me how a 2×4 shoe is made… no cardboard in sight… just leather, leather and more leather.

IMGP3964 He reveals that it took eight months to develop the rubber/suede/leather interchangeable sole system. I tell him that I will definitely be using it: between the sweaty baldosa floor of La Milonguita, the glass like surface of La Ideal, the slippery wood in Centro Regiòn Leonesa, I know I am going to test it to its limit. No problem, he says.

While Chacho talks I notice something in him that I recognise. I see the same thing that’s in me when I talk about how I want my ebook (now in its second draft, honest) to help first timers on the road to happy Buenos Aires tango memories, when I talk about wanting to inspire people to follow their hearts, when I talk about wanting to help people to set their own Barbie’s free. I see passion. I hear it too,

I’m always thinking about how I can make them better. Always… he says.

His eyes shine, and my beautiful Barbie sees his Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie. I see it too.

Maybe I should call this Barbie, Ken? After all it does live inside a guy, and God only knows how Chacho would feel about me talking about his Inner Artist this way… but, oh sod it, no, I won’t. I like the idea of an army of Barbie’s mixing creative magic in the world, be they living inside men or women.

So, Chacho Rosenkrantz of 2×4alpie, you unique and special human being you… for mixing tango shoe magic from passion and creativity right here in Buenos Aires, I’m giving you the very first

Barbie IMGP4028 images

Absolutely Bloody Brilliant Barbie Award

whether you like it or not. End of.

And folks around the globe, if you want to see more marvellous photos of 2×4s nestling among the tango shoes I have known, do check out my new and rather super Flickr photoset of that name, for the full celebratory picture book of  Sallycat’s Buenos Aires tango shoe family.

If you actually want to see the 2×4alpie interchangeable sole being changed, check out this little 2×4 video, which gives you a glimpse of just how bloody brilliant it is.

You can find 2×4alpie at Scalabrini Ortiz 1753 Apartment 3, Buenos Aires from 3pm to 7pm Monday to Saturday. If you want to be sure and meet Chacho, then phone before you go 1550112000 to make sure he’s in not out. In June 2009 all 2×4alpie shoes cost $470pesos a pair (when bought direct in Buenos Aires) and come with the full set of 2×4 sole change accessories and the sturdy, practical and super stylish 2×4alpie shoe bag.

And finally, if you own a pair of 2×4s, please feel free to celebrate them here!

The lovely trophy image above was originally on the web at dealbreaker.com.

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