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Letting go (take 2)

March 22, 2010 in Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 16 comments

How do you let go of fears?

I’ve been plagued by them since I sent Happy Tango off and tried to let go. After sobbing to C. last night, I felt slightly better; felt like I was crying the book out of me really; crying my heart out; the two things are kind of the same you see.

Yesterday, in the bathroom mirror, I caught a glimpse of maybe, just maybe why some amazingly talented artists don’t live to see their stuff out there in the world, and why some never get their art out there at all. Despite all my big words about living my dreams, and even my big(gish) actions in trying to do so, inside I am totally terrified that I’m not up to the job, not good enough, that the words I’ve written will be ridiculed. And it’s not that I don’t believe in the book. I DO. I think that it’s absolutely bloody brilliant… 11 fab Rules for landing the happiest possible tangos in Buenos Aires; an A to Z to put you in the know; a strategy for deciding where to dance first… all utter genius!

But writing that on this page (thank you Barbie) and remembering it are two very different things (thank you VOD); I’m haunted by the small errors, the things I got wrong, that you might come out of somewhere and turn left instead of right because of a mistake I made, or that my opinion of a place might be completely different to yours (gonna happen, of course), or dare I say it, a word I missed out because I was so tired by the end of it all, that I couldn’t really judge whether or not I was reading aloud what I’d actually written. I had some amazing help with my book along the way: a fabulous editor; a brilliant sub-editor; my test readers; my darling mum, who proof read it; but in the end it was just me, in the early hours,  surrounded by mountains of papers and tango magazines and maps, making the final amendments and deciding to send it off to the designers (I am the publisher too, this time round, you see). Should I have kept it longer? Visited places all over again? Pestered a friend to read it one more time, and delayed while they did (and while I made more changes that would have meant more errors)? On balance, nooo – it had to go before my life got lost in it; but in my head, if only… and what if? This is grim thinking, and getting me absolutely nowhere.

I’m hesitant to write about this stuff. But doing so is part of my big(gish) actions to step off the edge, live my dreams, and inspire others. Living your dreams sounds nice and cool and fabuloso, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. And I prefer to tell the truth about that.

Someone sent me a link to a website this week: thegapingvoid.com. It’s very marvellous for people like me. Tells us sharply (and in pictures, so that we can still get the message in our madder moments) that we are not alone, and that we should get on and bloody well do it anyway.  And I will. You know it. Right now though I feel like my book has been caught on camera. The snapshot has been taken, and there’s no going back. The gaping void? Well, exacto.

Anyone else ever felt like this? Or is it just me and the little girl in the bathroom mirror, and the genius guy who draws those spot-on cartoons?

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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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Angels

January 12, 2010 in Live your dreams, The tale of my book - Happy Tango | 32 comments

It’d be nice if this place in Palermo Chico, Buenos Aires, really offered up angelic saviours to go. I did look for a sign in the window:

Guardian angels for all dilemmas: wise decisions, with no nasty surprises further down the line, guaranteed; life between two lands a speciality; and bonus for January – expertise in self-publishing included free of charge!

But alas there was none, and so I find myself starting 2010 without a convenient angel to hold my hand, and a few challenges ahead of me. I can’t go into it all here, so you’ll just have to trust me, but I am beginning the new decade feeling a bit out of my depth. Lately I’ve learned about some stuff that I didn’t know of when my adventures began, and it’s unsettled me, worried me and left me mistrustful of my own intuition, gut feelings and common sense… scary for a girl intent on following her heart. If you’ve put your faith in the fact that you believe that your soul is, at last, in tune with The Universe, what the hell do you do when it all feels like the life you’ve built could unravel because of things you overlooked or didn’t know you should be looking for, but that existed around you all the time? How do you stop yourself feeling completely foolish? How do you stop self doubt from taking you back to a place like this?

For starters, I guess you have to keep believing that actually your soul is in tune with The Universe, and that for whatever reason, you just weren’t meant to know the things you now know, until now… maybe you weren’t ready to know them because back then they would have stopped you in your tracks, maybe if you’d known them it would have led you down a different path and prevented you from finding something you had to find (in my case, true love) or doing something you were meant to do (in my case, write a book that can help other people find more joy on their tango adventures). My natural human reaction to discovering something rather unpalatable is that if only I’d known it ‘back then’ I would have been able to plan for it, control it, live my life differently for it… but oh God, if I had, I might have missed out on moments like this. Who knows? I believe that I have walked the exact path that I have had to walk, and even one changed decision might have resulted in a Butterfly Effect tale with a very different middle, end and indeed, any given point along the way.

Then, there’s the fact that the biggest spanners in the works of the lives we plan for, are sometimes the catalysts for the lives we don’t yet know we are capable of. And I should know that better than anyone – it was an unexpected and very large spanner that got me dancing tango and brought me to South America in the first place. Would I put that one back in the toolbox now? No. Soooo, mightn’t it follow that the current spanners in my works could turn out to be tightening the golden bolts that will secure the next adventurous and marvellous phase of my life? Well, past experience at least says that there’s a chance of it.

And finally, there’s what I read yesterday (after I was tipped off by a wise friend) about Mercury being in retrograde from 26th December to 15th January and though I’m not normally one for reading my stars in the Clarín, I did breathe a sigh of relief as I scanned this little article with its positive take on the whole backwards-motion scenario being inflicted on us by one small planet, right now. You know, I even had a glitch on my blog’s server this week: lost a comment from a valued reader and a whole load of behind the scenes stats… Mercury retrograde at its finest I reckon – on the downside, an annoying glitch, but on the upside, it led me to the discovery that my automatic daily backups had somehow ceased. Spookily useful in the end, you see.

So, where am I exactly at this point on the road? Well, some of it I’d rather not share. The part I can tell you, is that I’m trying to work out what I need to do to get an ISBN number for Happy Tango. Seems (having read the small print) that being an author might not be enough. I need to be a publisher too. Which I can be… I think. The book has had the thumbs up from its fabulous Beta Readers (Gracias guys and girls), and so is on the way to final fact check, proof read, and design… but even an e-book might need an ISBN number, so I’ve got to get to work on that pronto. And to do it, I must set aside my fears that I am incapable of making decent decisions and trust that the help I need will come, as it has done every step of the way, thus far.

The Acknowledgements section of Happy Tango begins with the following words:

On Happy Tango’s journey from seed of an idea to being, The Universe has sent me many angels…

I go on to list those who have so far helped me with the book – there are lots of them. Plus, there are the non-book-specific angels in my life: my mum who never gives up on me; my friends who don’t run out of our favourite pizza place on Avenida Corrientes when my tears fall into the muzzarella; C. who never gives up on me either; and my very own Barbie who keeps trying to lift my spirits with her clear voice (and she’s done it again on this page). And I haven’t even mentioned the angels I haven’t yet met, but who will be walking towards me right now, just because I have asked for them here, with all my heart.

On reflection then, a few hours after I began this post, I think, perhaps, that there was more to Angel Express, Palermo Chico, than originally met my eye. The shop was in my path on January 1st as I walked home from waving the Dakar Rally off from Buenos Aires. I snapped it and forgot about it. Today, I copied the photos from my camera to my laptop, and saw it again. In my confused and somewhat low state, and thinking What will I ever find to blog about while I feel like this? I began to write using the photograph as a prompt and conjured angels on to this page. Perhaps I’m about to start flying with them again. Or maybe, I never stopped.

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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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Urug- whhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy?

July 10, 2009 in Buenos Aires Information, Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within | 12 comments

IMGP4326 When you’ve got a fortnight to go until your flight to London takes off from Argentina (6 weeks in Blighty fast approaching), you don’t feel too delighted that your Argentine tourist visa is about to expire.

To stay legal (important to me) for your final two weeks you either have to spend God only knows how long and $300pesos to renew the visa in Migraciones in Avenida Antartida, or you have to leave the country pronto. Since I recently promised myself that I would never again sit across the Migraciones counters from the lovely folk who turned down my temporary residency visa renewal (just doing their jobs I know), I considered the option of a $150peso day trip to Uruguay. Course I’ve already had the pleasure of overnighters on similar missions with C. but this time I was going it alone. Ah well, I mused, gives me the chance to road test a Buquebus City Tour of Colonia for the section Time off tango in my forthcoming book Happy Tango in Buenos Aires, for this blog, and for anyone who might ask me about it in the future. Always a bright side right?

Monday was the day.  I hoped for blue skies and warmth to accompany my three hour each way boat ride and camera happy wanderings around cobbled Uruguayan streets.

Sunday in Buenos Aires we had weather like this…

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and that was just after the worst which looked like this…

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and by Monday morning at 7.30am when I was walking the half a kilometre from the 152 bus stop to the boat terminal in Puerto Madero, ice had turned to water and God was tipping buckets of it on my head. As I faced the immigration officer checking my passport for a current tourist visa ($300pesos fine if he didn’t find one), my feet were squelching in my socks, my hair was plastered to my head, and my puffa coat of fluffed up feathers had turned into a wet blanket.

The blanket got wetter: 500 teenagers on the boat; 1000 parents meeting them in a covered Buquebus terminal porch about as big as an average sized British front room; me fighting my way through the hugging and kissing bodies (note swine flu warnings being completely and utterly ignored) a total of five times due to a string of misunderstandings about where I was to find the bus on which I was to take my City Tour… I’m afraid that by about 1pm I was spitting the F-word under my breath far too often, and desperately wanting to scream, Urug – whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? like a hyena. Or murder someone.

Thing is it wasn’t the weather, or the kids, or the Buquebus staff. It was me. Starting to feel a bit stressy about leaving Argentina and making the trip to the UK, even though I long to hug my family; finding an unexpected (writing books is far harder than I ever imagined it would be) third redraft of my book heavy going, even though I know it’s an essential and transformational draft, and putting pressure on myself to get it done before I fly to England; feeling that the trip to Uruguay was wasting my precious writing time, even though it allowed me six hours of redrafting on the boat and so didn’t really impact my schedule at all… oh gosh, and a few other equally rather ridiculous things besides.

Will I ever feel relaxed before a journey around the world from one of my home lands to the other?

This time, for the first time, I don’t have a physical home in Britain; I’ll be staying with friends and family. This time I don’t have my own car; I’ll be borrowing now and again. This time I’ll be spending most of my time in a part of the country where I’ve not lived since I was 17. Newness, change, the unknown… exciting, scary, exciting, scary…

Barbie: Hey Sallycat! Isn’t it gonna be AMAZING to swim in the Pembrokeshire sea and sing Debbie Harry songs on the Karaoke computer game with your little sisters?

VOD: Start panicking Sal. You’ll miss Buenos Aires sooooo much. How will you feel when you can’t sleep at 4am and there are no cafès or tango salons open in the whole of England, or the part of England you’ll be in anyway? And I know you don’t wander out into the Buenos Aires night in search of coffee, but you could if you wanted to right? Well, in England you won’t be able to, EVER!

Barbie: We’re gonna dance tango in London, and Bramshaw, and Burley and Shrewsbury! Dance, dance, dance little Sallycat, wherever you go!

VOD: Britain will put travel restrictions on people coming from Argentina because the swine flu is getting out of hand, and you won’t even get into the country, na na na naaaaaaa na!

Barbie: UK. OK? UK! OK! UKOKUKOKUKOK… YOU IN THE UK!!! 24th JULY! OK?

God, sometimes it feels like World War bloody Three between my ears.

Anyone else know what I mean?

Actually, seeing it written down reminds me that I know what I mean. I felt like it last time too, but far worse, and I survived. Seeing it written down is making me laugh aloud too. Recently I was talking to someone about how when we recognise a pattern of our own behaviour that we don’t like, we can stop it and change just by stopping it and changing it. There’s nothing hard about it. We just have to stop doing what we’ve always done. And behave a different way instead. Today VOD was trying to convince me that because I’ve got so much to do on the book draft, and so much to do to get ready for the trip, I’ve got no time to write a blog post. Well I’ve just proved him wrong, and that’s a great start. One step in the right direction is all I need to move out of panicked paralysis. And as I sign off here, I’ve already taken it.

I’m afraid this is clearly not one of those well thought out posts. It’s one of those ‘start somewhere and end where you’re meant to’ posts.  You know, the ones where I sometimes say, Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening my friends,

from Sallycat, Barbie and VOD.

PS. And here’s the why in Urug-why, because like I said, there’s always a bright side. I got a brand spanking new tourist visa and after the sun came out on a most interesting City Tour, I took some super pics with my Pentax. Here they are in a lovely Flickr photoset called Day Trip to Uruguay.

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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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Pink

May 22, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within | 28 comments

This is going to be a short entry. I need to be a bit strict with myself this evening about knuckling down to the final stages of my first draft of the bigger ebook project and not procrastinating by writing too much else. However in the interests of being truthful on the subject of nearing the end of a writing project (well, the first draft anyway!), yesterday there was a bit of VOD in the mix right on queue: oh you can’t say that, oh you can’t leave that out, oh you can’t put that in, oh it’s too tricky to get it right, oh why bother anyway… and so today I decided I MUST wake Barbie up, and get her firing on all cylinders because in the battle against the VOD, she is my saviour every time. I will point out that this is big progress, to actually know how to counter the VOD… I am very determined now, that he will not get the better of me.

This morning I decide not to sit indoors at the blank page because I know that is what VOD wants (so he can beat me up a bit), and instead I set off into the unexpectedly hot sunshine of this late May day to carry out a piece of research for the ebook (thus I am continuing to walk forward), and have some spontaneous fun in the process. I’m making for DNI at Bulnes 1011. I guess you all know DNI is a pretty famous Buenos Aires school of tango nuevo; I’ve never taken a class there, being a bit more traditionally-hearted in my tango – for now at least, but mates of mine have and speak highly of it; Bulnes is their new location; they have a store selling tango shoes and clothes; I want to go and have a chat with them, and check the place out.

On the way, to shake Barbie awake I decide to take three photographs of things I see that make me smile. Here they are:

Yellow leaves

Blue flowers

Spires

Once at DNI, the girl on the desk is delightful and she lets me wander all over the building by myself… it’s an old building and has a kind of welcoming rambling feel that I like: lots of stairs, light, fresh air and people dancing on wooden floors. After my wander, I ask the girl to open the shop for me and she does. We chat about classes, prices, how everything is currently based in Bulnes because of the renovations in Corrientes… I ask the price of the women’s shoes. I decide I will try some, just to see if they are comfortable, because I want to write about them and so I need to know. I never thought of buying shoes from DNI before – actually I think women’s shoes are quite a new thing for them. Anyway, apart from 2×4alpie, where I am going next Saturday, I don’t think I have tried on a more comfortable pair of tango shoes. And in the end it turned out, after much help from the lovely girl and a few other friendly folk who wandered in and out, and a visit from one of the cutest dogs I have ever seen (and I am a cat person not a dog person) that they had a pair that fitted me like Cinderella slippers in size 36.5 and that were pink. They were $340 pesos (currently a pretty reasonable price for a Buenos Aires famous name tango shoe) and because I haven’t bought shoes since 2007, and because the Commes I have are now too high and cause me too much pain, and because I have promised myself two pairs of tango shoes that I can actually dance in without needing to take Ibuprofen for the next 5 days… I bought them. Comfort! Fit like a glove! Pink patent leather with bright yellow insoles! Spontaneity! Barbie! Down with VOD!

Me and Barbie decide to celebrate with a Pepsi at a pavement cafe in the sun and end up splashing out on a delicious sandwich of aubergine, tomato, mozzarella and basil. I decide to FORGET how many pesos I’m damn well spending and believe for a moment that there is enough abundance in the world for us all, and to eat some of it right here right now!

Healthy stuff

While we eat we pull a book from our slightly grubby and very loud pink and brown flowery bag. A friend sent me this book from England. I start to read it.

At page 35 I start to cry: I am reading about ‘The hero’s journey’ and The Call to Adventure (perhaps the wake up call), and the book asks me if I have faced my own Call to Adventure, and if I have accepted it. I realise I am crying because I know, I absolutely know I have, and that I am on exactly the right path: suddenly I remember who I am, and how I am living my dreams, and keeping the pen moving and my feet dancing, and taking life as lightly as I am able to in this moment and SOD bloody VOD!

By now, I’m afraid Me and Barbie are in the mood to dance down the escalator to the Subte at Scalabrini Ortiz, we get a seat, we smile at everyone we see, we race home to write our blog thus clearing the way for the bigger project over the weekend and all the other super things we have planned: birthday parties and farewell parties and the absolutely fantastically special second anniversary of Me and C.

I’ve got a few things to thank for this perfect day:

  1. Me. I’ve learned what wakes Barbie up: spontaneity; getting out there and exploring lovely friendly, warm, spacious feeling places; taking photos; anything pink.
  2. My UK mate who was in BsAs, who goes by the gorgeously funky name of SurfFlower, who in connection to this little tale, used to enthuse about what a friendly place DNI was… she was right, and who sent me the book whose page 35 made me cry with joy today.
  3. The universe for providing Buenos Aires with unseasonably high 31º temperatures in late May that called me from my blank page, into the world of research, and walking, and feeling alive.

So to give something back, maybe you’d like to get to your page 35 too. I recommend it. If so, here’s what you’re looking for:

Just wild and true

Wild Love by Gill Edwards.

Oh, and if you want to see the shoes Barbie bought, well, check out the DNI store page here, and find the pink shoes at the bottom. I did try the gorgeous princessy violet ones in the top picture too but alas none in my size, which sort of led me to the pink. But Barbie wanted pink.

Oh, and I know the entry wasn’t short in the end, but it came out fast and true… which more or less amounts to the same thing. Now I’ve cleared the clutter, and I can get back to work!

Happy holiday (25 de Mayo in Argentina, Bank Holiday in UK) weekend to you all, and to ‘your Barbies’. Trust me. Go buy yourself something in your Barbie’s favourite colour tomorrow; even if it only costs a dollar, I guarantee it will make you smile. ;)

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Obsession

May 16, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within | 25 comments

IMGP3580 Once upon a time it was tango.

Then, I heard myself say to a friend the other day, Tango isn’t an obsession any more, and later, I wondered about that.

What is obsession? Well, for me it’s when I’m a bit out of control with something, in the sense that it is driving me, taking a skewed and exaggerated position in my life, and other things that matter are getting squeezed out: it can feel unhealthy because I sense that my balance has gone and that chaos has decided to throw a bit of a party.

From the day I first walked backwards in October 2006, I was obsessed with tango: I danced every night (given the chance) and if I didn’t, I felt that I wasn’t breathing; when I wasn’t dancing I was thinking about the next time; and my experiences in and around tango sent me flying or crying because all things tango mattered, mucho, and perhaps a bit too mucho. In the end as it turned out, tango had a massive role to play in the life of this little housewife from Hampshire. It convinced me to come to Buenos Aires: I swapped countries, languages, lifestyle, cultures and tango cultures too; it led me to meet C.; it brought me to a place, both externally and internally, where I have never been happier.

It’s been over two years, and I am no longer tango-obsessed: tango is part of life, but it doesn’t have the power to shut out non-tango friends and experiences, food, sleep or upset my emotional applecart in the ways that it once did. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be without tango… a week or so without dancing, and I need to dance. Yes, tango is a vital element in creating the overall life I want. However it has now relaxed its hold and in the process has handed me over to another obsession.

Around the same time that I discovered tango, I stopped writing.

Here is my final poem from November 2006. Tango is present: tango, and pain.

Lost

He placed a silver splinter in her skin

that she could not remove. The magnifying glass

was useless. A skipped heart beat

is elusive, impossible to explain.

He smashed her big picture,

mixed it into a jumbled jigsaw;

how many pieces fell through his fingers,

pierced his days?

She searched for the missing colours

in video games, her iPod, logic.

Found them in his voice, his dance, his arms –

the parts he always took away.

After that poem, I stopped trying to create with words because I was sick of writing about the dark side, the sadness. Plus at the same time, in offering me tango, the universe presented me with a chance to stop writing about my torments and do something about them instead. And oh boy, I did. I did. I changed my life forever.

Between then and now, the writing never really stopped though, did it? This blog. 167 posts, and God knows how many thousands and thousands of words, and the truth is that tango made me do it. Tango kept the words flowing on this blog for two years until I was ready to pick up other sorts of pens again. Thank you tango. You kept this writer alive.

In 2008 the urge returned to write outside of the blog. I dreamt of big bestsellers, inspirational tomes, a memoir that could change lives. I also dreamt of a little  ‘friend in your shoe bag’ tango guide for first time tango travellers to Buenos Aires, and I started writing it. I met VOD. I stopped. I met Barbie. I started it again. VOD won over. I stopped. Barbie punched VOD on the nose. I started again, and this final time, I did not stop.

The inspirational book, one day maybe, if the universe wishes it. The tango guide – Oh my God, eight months after I wrote the first words of the first draft, I am pretty confident (note the disclaiming VOD in those words), that it will be completed… lets just say 40000 words are in the computer, and I can see the end in sight. It has been through three life cycles in terms of structure and style. I have asked myself a million questions in terms of what it is and what it is not: I have the answers now. Despite VOD and actually despite Sallycat, this project has fought to survive: every time I have abandoned it, Barbie has woken me up one day with a new idea; I thought I’d lost the lot when my laptop blew up, but the marvellous PC doctors managed to save my manuscript; in my weakest moments wonderfully encouraging people keep popping up and telling me to keep going. So, I have plodded on: 1000 words here, 2000 words there – every day, I say to myself:  Sal, just keep going until the end of the first draft – then decide. Now, unbelievably the end of the first draft is now just days away, assuming I keep doing the plodding on thing!

BUT folks, the tango guide is not the point of this little tale, just a step on the journey.

A few days ago, out of the blue, two people in the same day on different sides of the globe sent me a link to a travel writing competition: 800 words, a theme, 48 hours to the deadline. I decided to have a crack at it.

Whether or not my entry via email even reached the judges on Friday is not important.

I know that what I wrote was beautiful.

And it just came out of me as if from a spring that was probably called Barbie, or should I say, The Great Creator.

OK, Sallycat crafted it afterwards but, the initial words came from a place that I have never felt when writing prose before. And I know that if I had not been writing this blog, and this tango guide, and bits of memoir, every week and every day for months and months… well, Barbie would have been asleep in the cellar under VOD’s lock and key, and I would have sat and stared at a blank page for a very long time. In a flash, I saw that every single word I write, whatever happens to it, matters. And it matters if only because it is leading me to the next one. The joy I felt to write my 800 word essay this week, is the ultimate writer’s prize, but I could not have won that prize without every single word of the journey I have been on. And that joy, the joy I used to feel when I completed a poem, is a joy I want to feel again because in it I breathe deep and free and know that I am being meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The trick, if I can manage it, is not to become too obsessed with chasing the writing joy: awake half the night searching for a perfect word; being unable to enjoy the company of a friend because the search for the perfect word, or format, or title is on my mind; my eyes needing to be propped open with matchsticks over the laptop at 4am. I’m afraid it is hard for me. I am an addictive type. Tango. Writing. Twitter.  Coffee. Galaxy chocolate. Open top bus tours with mi amor. Balancing them all without sacrificing healthy food, sleep, staying in touch with everyone, paying the bills on time… it’s tough.

On the other hand, how absolutely bloody marvellous it is, to have actually discovered some stuff that I am passionate about! For forty-odd years of my life I wanted to learn  of the things that could feed my soul and give it wings, and in tango and in writing I have found definitely found two of them. If I get a bit obsessive about them from time to time, not too much harm done eh? At least I’m not addicted to the evil weed any more.

Is it desirable to try to stop a runaway train of creativity that may verge on becoming an obsession, when you have fought so damn hard to discover it and get it going in the first place? I’m on the side of letting it race on unfettered, because one day it will undoubtedly slow down of its own accord, and then, there will be a time to rest.

What do you guys think?

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My latest BsAs tango lesson

April 24, 2009 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires | 14 comments

IMGP3398 On the subject of surviving some of the day to day challenges thrown up by living in Buenos Aires, one of the most positive young people I have ever met in my life says to me, You just have to laugh… at life, at life in Buenos Aires, at yourself. She’s right. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly – right? (G.K. Chesterton, I believe)

In a few months of a giant iceberg of bureaucracy (the tip of which I’ve mentioned on this blog), some big emotional growth stuff (which I will perhaps mention one day), a recent huge effort on progressing my little ebook guide for first time tango travellers (which I’ve kept pretty much to myself to keep the pressure off and VOD quiet, but progress is being made, honest), and crossing the bridge from smoker to non-smoker (which has driven me to want to kill at times)… 2009 has all felt a bit too damn serio.

Last week I knew it had indeed got a bit too damn serio when I and a dear Brit friend in town went to dance a last tango or two with Ariel before he set off on a teaching tour around South America, and I could barely complete thirty seconds without tripping over my own feet. I haven’t danced with him for a while, and instead have settled rather comfortably into the arms of my regular milonguero style dancers in my regular milongas. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I was a bit shocked at how my body, for whatever reason,  just didn’t behave quite the way it once did when faced with the wonderfully exciting and talented Ariel. Of course that little experience had VOD yelling at me all the way home on the number 15 bus: you are lazy with your tango, you don’t push yourself enough with your tango, you should be going to the more ‘high powered’ milongas like all the people passing through, you should be spending more money on tango classes, what a waste of all the effort you once put in… blah, blah, blah.

It really can be the strangest thing, living in Buenos Aires with tango now a smaller than it once was (but nonetheless vital in the quest for joy) part of your life, where you are constantly meeting people who are here for a shorter time than you, for whom tango is the main reason for their visit, as it was for me in my first year. Unfortunately of late, I have noticed that it can lead me to make comparisons, and that VOD always wants to place me in the ‘less than’ category.

Of course I know that actually I love my Buenos Aires tango:  the milongas I go to; the wonderful men and music that make my tango joyful; all the friends (whether living here or passing through) with whom I share any of my dancing hours; the social aspect of the milongas I like; that my guys look right into my eyes as we part and I know that they have felt the moment as much as I… I love it all, and yet when I am tired, or sick of chasing paperwork, or missing Galaxy chocolate,  VOD starts up – an echo of a once far louder VOD, of UK origins, that tells me I’ve got to get better, be better, be seen to be better, be thought of as ‘advanced’ tango-wise (errrr by who exactly…?). Oh how I do not like that voice.  I also know that none of the effort I once put in to my tango classes is wasted: it is in part because of half decent technique that I can dance at all in the milongas, and give the pleasure that I do to my guys.

Once upon a time I danced most with Ariel and Carlos and my body got used to their ways. Lately I’ve danced more with the milongueros and some lovely tourists passing through than either of them, and even Carlos laughs at the little milonguero style things I do with my feet now: you never used to do that before – it’s so milonguero! He’s right. And it’s OK. We laugh about it, and that is where I want to be. Light hearted and loving towards my tango and the piece of me that is a tanguera and that is evolving just like the rest of me.

I’m not saying that there isn’t room for me to learn (I’m always learning and mucho in the milongas), or that I won’t take any more classes in tango… but for now, the fact that I’m not doing so is in part dictated by my life circumstances, and in part by choice as I come to terms with what is important to me in tango and what isn’t at this point in my tango journey.

Whatever the future holds, I don’t want to take myself too seriously, with respect to anything, but definitely with respect to tango, in my efforts to satisfy VOD (who can of course never be satisfied). I prefer the playful, innocent, enthusiastic joy that is Barbie: the Barbie who ran out onto the dance floor one night at Club Sunderland to dance vals with C. only to discover that it was the exhibition (Oh that’s why we’re sharing the floor with Osvaldo Zotto and no-one else!); the Barbie who excitedly announced to the world on this blog that she was a ‘milonguera’ after a few months in Buenos Aires, when I think she really meant ‘tanguera’; the Barbie who wants to write honest posts like this one in the battle against VOD. Thing is, what is tango joy for Sallycat and Barbie will be different to what is tango joy for you and your Inner Artist and that is perfectly ok. I have to love myself enough to be proud of who I am at this point on my journey. And stop comparing myself to anyone else or allowing VOD to beat me up, in tango or in life.

Here is the Martha Graham quote that dear Gabriella tore from a magazine and pushed into my hand as she left Buenos Aires, having been my tango partner in crime for four months, in 2007. It is time for me to read it again every day and to remember that whatever, and whoever I am in tango today, this minute – it is enough:

There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it! It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

In the spirit of that, I love the photo at the top of this post of me hugging the UK bear. I didn’t see many other folks doing that the day I was in Plaza San Martín. Touching maybe, hugging no. Perhaps it was an un-cool thing to do, or a bit embarrassing, or wasn’t allowed at all… oh bloody hell, who damn well cares…

IMGP3226

Beautiful Barbie made me do it ;)

Sallycat

PS. Incidentally, if you want to read a great post on the subject of one tanguero’s tango journey to date, try this one: The intricacy of simplicity by Ampster Tango in Seattle. It’s honest, and that is why I love it.

PPS. And in case you’re new to this blog, here are a few other BsAs tango lessons I’ve had along the way:

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

April 2008

September 2008

January 2009

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Moments of clarity

March 14, 2009 in Live your dreams, Sallycat - the writer within | 11 comments

IMGP6932The flip flop between refreshing rainstorms and baking sun has begun, autumn is approaching  Buenos Aires, and I’m getting a cold – the first for nine months. Thus during the next few days I will possibly become befuddled, lose my confidence and start wondering what I’m doing with my life. A physical downturn, in my case, so often holds hands with a dip in mental clarity and a hiccup in spiritual connectedness (Is that a word? If not it’s happening already!), so before I go there I’m going to record where here is, so that I can remember that I am a bright spark and that I can come back to sanity whenever I want. Clever huh?

Writing about the VOD a month ago was the best move I could have made. It paved the way for me to come clean with my Writing Group about my reaction to their feedback and my subsequent plunge into writer’s block. Getting honest there cleared the decks and guess what… a few days later I couldn’t stop that pen from jumping into my hand – a fresh approach to an old project popped into my head and I was working on something that I thought had been lost to me. Writer’s block? Well, let’s just say that I think it and VOD decided to bugger off to Bariloche together and leave me in peace for a bit. Fantastico.

Then I got some clarity.

I used to think I had no ideas. I wrote this blog, came up with over a hundred topics for its tiny chapters, but they didn’t count (said VOD).

Then Barbie piped up with serious book idea #1. Passionate Sallycat steamed in with her big mouth and her pen. VOD got wind of it and crushed it as if it were a fag end under his Doc Marten. Sallycat put her pen down.

Not to be defeated, Barbie piped up with serious book idea #2 (previously serious book idea #0, which I’m not even going to go into here) and Sallycat was back brandishing her pen. This time she did keep her mouth shut on the world stage (this blog ;) ) to avoid the need to satisfy anyone else’s expectations and thus remove a degree of perceived (not real) pressure. Yet, VOD was waiting on Sallycat’s shoulder at the Writing Group. He was ready with his boot just the same. Sallycat bought a shredder.

Oh fuck it! said Sallycat, I love my blog. It’s writing isn’t it? To blog is enough.

Hence I entered a World City Blogger Challenge, and began investigating small ways (even involving code of the programming variety – I remembered that I in fact have a Degree in ancient history: BSc. Computing Science circa 1985, University of London) to improve this blog and reach more readers. It was fun and it took my mind about as far away from writing books as you can get. Until, that is, the morning two weeks ago when I woke up and found my mind brimming over with a possibly do-able simple approach to a now seriously less serious book idea #1. Bloody hell!

Since then I have not shared what it is, what it looks like, or what the words are with anyone and I’m not going to. I simply say I’ve picked up the pen and and I’m writing again and just for today that feels OK. No promises, no details, no criticism requested until there is a sufficient body of work, or I am confident I can handle VOD, or both. Punto.

The lesson, for me, is this.

One writing project. Pretty intense. The project stumbles and I am lost.

Several projects: at least one for each of my passions or skills or current fads or obsessions be they writing or not writing. Tricks VOD into thinking that none of them are that important and thus he doesn’t have to worry that I’ll fail and so try to stop me from getting in too deep. Plus, and this is the really good part, when I’m busy studying how to implement an improvement to my blog or trying to work out exactly what a Kindle 2 bought in the USA could do for me in Argentina, the creative writing area of my brain is on holiday: relaxing, playing, and gaining energy ready to start work all over again… without any input whatsoever from me.

I’ve realised that actually I have a never ending stream of ideas. So no better way to deal with that than to have lots of projects.

And, because I’ve also learned that I work best when a project feels fresh, by rotating where I’m putting my effort I can actually create the fresh conditions over and over again. Nothing has to stagnate.

Furthermore, if a project does die – inevitable when you’re an ideas girl ;) , well it doesn’t matter because there are others already on the go to smooth over the gap.

Oh hell, it’s all so obvious isn’t it?

Maybe. Yet, I grew up in a time when you left university and took one ‘job for life’ – the norm in the days when some of my beliefs concerning success were being constructed. You did one thing and you stuck with it. If you didn’t, you attracted comments like, ‘no stickability’, or ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. Often the job for life had nothing to do with passion. It had to with the fact that it was a job for life, or that there was a final salary pension scheme… and we all know what’s happened to both of those concepts.

In those days too, if you couldn’t answer the question, What do you do? by saying you were a ’something’, then you were a ‘nothing’… you just didn’t create your own unique and technicoloured portfolio of activities from every little thing you loved, believing that it would one day earn you enough money to live. It just wasn’t the done thing. Now, here, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. For the first time.

So yeah it’s all obvious. But for too many years it wasn’t to me.

And now that I’ve recorded that little light bulb coming on, I can take a couple of Ibuprofen and blow my nose in peace.

Thanks for listening. And if you’ve had any ‘moments of clarity’ lately, I’d love to hear about them. Mucho.

Sallycat

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