England v Argentina

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How Buenos Aires has changed me

May 19, 2010 in Expat in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 34 comments

How scheduled is life in the land where you live?

Me and C. are rapidly approaching a summer in the UK (yes, England is on our horizon and, for various reasons, we expect to be dancing tango in Blighty for as long as three months this time), and I’m noticing that in order to make things work for us over there, I have to do far more arranging than I normally do here in Buenos Aires. It feels alien: advance flight bookings, fixed-date month-ahead train tickets, agreements with kind and generous UK folk for them to put us up (or put up with us) or to lend us cars. On such and such date we will be travelling to such and such town to see such and such friends, and we need to sort it now, in case they are off on holiday or offering their sofa to someone else. In other words, I’m doing nothing more than the normal degree of planning that most people do to make things happen smoothly in their lives. So why does it feel do damn strange to me?

In my ‘life before Argentina’, I used to do a great deal of event scheduling. My mum bought me a wall calendar every Christmas, and it used to be packed with my future — weekends filled with dinner parties or country pubs, Southampton footie matches (home and away), visits to family and friends homes, friends and family visits to our home, meetings and greetings, often decided on and agreed weeks ahead. I remember conversations when we’d say to people, It’s going to have to be the month after next I’m afraid, and I’d be thinking, Oh God, when oh when can I have a weekend just for meeeee? But, the truth was that, in general, life felt empty without activities lined up, as if it might slip away unnoticed. Plans meant direction; lists meant action, purpose, time filled usefully; and lists and calendars with items crossed off them meant success and achievement. It was all so… well… organised. Deep down though, I was a person with longings to rebel; I wanted to rip up the calendar, and dance on its pages. As it turned out, I kind of did.

Three years on, I don’t have a calendar in Buenos Aires. I never know the date. I always have to ask people. Days of the week I remember by a few fun but fairly loose weekly fixtures, such as Mondays — tea and dancing and dinner after with mates afterwards, Wednesdays — hooking up with fellow writers, Saturdays — sharing a table with friends and more marvellous tango, Sundays — chilling out with C. Any extra plans involving others tend to get made only days or hours before the start time, and they often allow quite easily for a late change of heart (falling asleep after dancing in the afternoon, can’t do that salsa club at 1am after all, type of thing). When people want to make plans further out than a few days, I find myself saying, Do you mind if we pencil it in and confirm nearer the time? or Can we see how we feel when Sunday comes? Maybe it sounds a bit rude to those who are making generous offers to me or those used to calendars filled with plots and schemes, but I’ve learned that if I don’t feel like doing something in the moment it’s often better not to do it (for everyone concerned, to keep the energy in the situation at ease), and I know that many of my friends here feel the same. Mostly it works, and mostly it works without anyone feeling too let down when things don’t happen ‘as planned’. If it doesn’t work for me in any moment, then it just means I need to relax a little more, smile a little more, laugh a little more, let other people go their own way a little more. As soon as I do that, life feels easier, smoother, freer.

Carlos always says to me, Eat medialunas when you want to eat medialunas, sleep when you want to sleep, write when you want to write, shag when you (actually that last one is my lingo, because he is far too genteel for British words like shag)… and so on. And I do. I also impose a bit of discipline as I do have dreams, as you know, and want to keep walking towards them — so, every day, something to progress my writing work, something to move Happy Tango towards publication, something to move the general administration of life in a good direction, something to connect me with the outside world (a friend or my family or a new person I haven’t met yet), something fun, something to put me in better touch with myself, something from my list of things that bring me joy… my time gets filled fast, but on the whole, it gets filled pretty spontaneously depending on my mood, and my soul loves it. I was right about its longings. It feels happier dancing when it feels like it, than sticking to a dance schedule previously set out and agreed with others, written on an agenda or even just sketched out, ahead of time, in my head.

It’s true that some visitors seem to find my unstructured way a bit hard to understand, in that they assume that because I don’t have fixed schedules, I’m not doing anything at all — How exactly do you spend your time? or Well, you don’t have anything to get up for, do you? (meaning a conventional job I s’pose – though actually Carlos has clients so we do set our alarm just like most people – unless it’s Sunday, when I confess, we have actually been known to stay in bed all day — and how completely fabulous that feels at age 47, I can tell you).  Buenos Aires has also taught me that night hours can be just as handy as day hours… it started with dancing tango from midnight until dawn, but now I’m more likely to be writing into the early hours, or eating a very late dinner, as many Argentines do. Time seems to stretch in this city… there are no fixed meal times in my world, or monthly milonga hours (as tango is available almost around the clock), and the concept of ‘9 to 5′ just doesn’t exist in Argentina at all — ‘10 to 8′ might be closer to it, but even then it can be  bit fluid.

With no schedule, there tends to be less chance of disappointment, too. I think that if I was a millionaire and could afford full price tickets I’d probably just make my bookings the day before travel. Plans carefully made in advance can always be ripped apart at the last minute by some disruption anyway. This week for example, we’ve got British Airways announcing, un-announcing and possibly re-announcing strikes, plus a volcanic ash cloud threatening to close British airspace on any given day. Maybe we’ll be able to travel on our date. Maybe we won’t. Maybe I’ll finalise the way to pay my taxes before I leave town. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll have a published book by the end of June. Maybe I won’t. Whatever happens, the world will still turn, and I will keep walking towards my dreams and never give up on them.

Meanwhile, I accept that on my UK 2010 journey, a little more scheduling than I normally do in Buenos Aires, might be necessary. On the other hand, if you try to pin me down to something over there and I seem a bit elusive, having read this, you will understand why.

How do you live? Spontaneity or packed calendar on the wall? Sticking to the plan or seeing how you feel on the day? Full dance card the moment you walk through the door and see who’s there, or wait to listen to the music before deciding?

I’m intrigued, because lately, somewhat increasingly, and once again in unexpected ways last week, it seems that whatever detailed plans I add to my overall intentions and aims, something else happens. So at last and I think none too soon, I’m losing faith in the value of my own elaborate schemes… and, as I wrote just a few weeks ago, gaining faith in allowing The Grand Plan to unfold instead. Something else is changing too. Once, as in the saga of Carlos’ passport back in 2007, dealing with the slightest unexpected thing would send me into a tailspin for weeks. Now, it might be a bit unsettling for a few days, but embracing what is (and not what I thought it would be) comes far faster.

Buenos Aires has changed me in oh so many ways. An ability to release ‘the gift’ in the arms of the milongueros I love the most, a passion for the best medialunas in town (the ones I’m gloating over above are served at La Viruta at about 4.15am at weekends), a Barbie inside that creates fab things on the outside… Returning to England always causes me to reflect on how things used to be, and how they are now. No bad thing, I reckon. Especially when I find that I like the new and developing habits of the person I have become. Some say that people never change. I disagree. I think if your soul wants you to chuck the agenda on the floor and dance on it, and you are not stepping up to the task, it will send out its cry to The Universe to give you the opportunity. If you are ready and willing in that moment (and are prepared for some serious life adventuring), all becomes possible. Dancing on that wall calendar? Life in another land? Life with dreams lived rather than only dreamed? What is your soul crying out for today?

Why not take a moment out of the crush of the pre-arranged schedule, to listen.
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With thanks to my friend H. for the pic of me and the medialunas in La Viruta, and for the conversation as we walked along Avenida Corrientes on Monday night, that in part, inspired this post.

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Adjusting

August 17, 2009 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK | 17 comments

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Beautiful isn’t it?

It’s St. Justinian near St. David’s, Pembrokeshire, Wales… and to be more precise, it’s the wall of the garden of the palace we stayed in last week to celebrate my mum and dad’s Golden Wedding Anniversary. That little figure sitting above the coastal path, marvelling at the gulls riding the air currents, as they fly free, is C.  Can’t really get much further from the chocca 24/7 corner of Corrientes and Callao can you? Or from the centre of the dance floor at La Milonguita at 1am on a busy Sunday night.

Here’s a bit more of the UK space that Me and C. have been adjusting to in the past days…

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Not bad eh?

But, could I live in it?

I don’t think so. Not right now anyway. I thought about this very point in the art gallery at the St David’s Visitor Centre: I stared at some Graham Sutherland paintings that had originally been inspired by Pembrokeshire space and I registered that out of natural beauty he had created masterpieces. Me on the other hand? One week surrounded by sea, sand, grass, rocks and birds, and my Inner Artist Barbie began to feel like she was desperate for a shot of decent coffee to prevent her from falling into a Sleeping Beauty style 100 year doze (and believe me she was desperate, because I can truly say that one of the things I am disliking most about Britain is the inability of anybody, even if they are standing in front of something that gleams with the promise of being a fancy Italian coffee machine, to sell me anything even faintly resembling a cortado (expresso cut with hot milk) – everything comes in bowl sized cups and has so much milk or water added to it that it doesn’t even smell of the drink it’s named after… oh I don’t want to be a moaning Minnie, but bloody hell, when I’m parting with two quid, and people look at me as if I have absolutely no right to request coffee that has more flavour or substance than dishwater, I can’t help a weeny grumble on Barbie’s behalf. Grumble! OK rant over.)

Now where were we? Ah yes, space. Sometimes appearances can be deceptive can’t they, in that space on the outside may not necessarily lead to space on the inside. In Pembrokeshire I was sharing a palatial residence, where (apparently) the likes of The Beverley Sisters and David Essex have hung out in their time, with 10 other people: my family.

Now, I love every single one of these 10 marvellous mums, dads, sisters, nephews, nieces, and brother-in-laws, but nonetheless, particularly since it came hot on the heels of almost three weeks of staying in friends’ houses and being surrounded by fellow human beings almost all the time,  if I’m honest there were a few moments when I was torn between joining in (because I’m only here for seven weeks and who knows when I might see my family again), and longing for my rather simple existence and the massive degree of personal space that I’ve created on the other side of the planet. Then of course I lay awake at night feeling guilty about my seeming inability to switch seamlessly between two (albeit rather different) environments. Mi amor C. was the first to report the cracks in my joy to me. He’s honest and I love him for it. Why aren’t you smiling more, when you are in such a beautiful place with people you’ve missed for months? he asked me on about day three on the cliff top. And because I do listen these days, I heard him.

In the end it all comes down to understanding myself a little better and that is never a bad thing. Later I talked about it with a couple of members of my family, and I started to wonder if it doesn’t all date back to being the eldest child, who for the first two years of her life had all the ‘space’ she wanted; then one day when the first new little sister came along, learned the annoyance of having to live with the pressure of the probably highly unwelcome, What are you doing, can I play? type questions; and then shared a bedroom with that little sis and later a second until the happy age of around 11 when she finally landed a space of her own – but by then the desperation to separate had been born. Or maybe my desire for ‘me time’ just means that I’m an unsociable bugger who is pursuing a writing career on the other side of the world for the one simple reason that I’m happiest doing something which requires absolutely zero collaboration with anyone else. Could be eh? Or perhaps it’s a bit of a mixture of the two. Yep, if I’m honest it probably is.

It’s actually good to think about it and accept who I am in this regard: someone who can love to join in but only wants to do so when balancing participation with time to write, think, process, prepare myself to meet the world with a smile… I’ve carved out a way to achieve it in Argentina, but in England where there are just so many one off special things to do and people to see in limited time, and especially without a home of my own to escape to, it’s a challenge. Hence I’ve got up in the middle of a few nights since I’ve been in Britain: indeed the hours between 3am and 7am saw my book final arrive at the end of its latest redraft.

Finding time to write this blog post since the Pembrokeshire cliff top (where there was no internet) has been a challenge too, because with my awareness awakened following my chat with Carlos, I’ve sooooo enjoyed joining in this weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday had me  diving with gusto into various aspects of the fabulous Shrewsbury Flower Show (and here are a few pics to prove it) where my rather amazing parents were taking centre stage in their new roles as the Mayor and Mayoress or Shrewsbury: flowers, show gardens, motorcycle display teams, military bands playing in a bandstand exactly like la Glorieta where Me and C. met, fireworks for Barbie to LOVE… I’m not sure I could have had a more perfect few days, and as usual me getting to the truth of myself beforehand made it all run that bit more smoothly in the at times slightly higgledy piggledy world between my ears.

Tonight our Shrewsbury world is calm because 7 of my family have left town for a few days and we are back to being 4. At my mum’s place, Me and C. are sitting in a silent (apart from the ticking of the grandfather clock) conservatory, him drawing a picture and me writing this. Mum came in a minute ago, This room is your little home, she said. You’ve got two arm chairs, Carlos has got his crayons, you’ve got your laptop, the telly’s there if you fancy it, you can even sleep in here if you want… I love my mum. She’s put up with me for 46 years and never gives up on wanting me to be happy. What’s making me smile inside on this visit is in fact how happy I observe her to be: I don’t think Shrewsbury could have a more generous hearted, sociable and joyous Mayoress right now. Frankly, to see my mum and dad chatting to anyone and everyone they meet with a social grace that I at times can only dream of… it’s an inspiration in itself, never mind the fact that they’ve also made it to 50 years of marriage.

Today then, I’ve done the selfish thing and taken a day to work, write and reflect. Tomorrow we’re off to show C. a castle, and at the weekend, well, it won’t just be 11 people in one room, it’ll be more like 111 for my parent’s big Golden Wedding party on Saturday night… and the entertainment, home made style, will involve a lot of joining in. My brother in law’s treating us to a spot of stand up comedy, my niece is singing a solo, my youngest sister’s family and my uncle are getting their voices, guitars and drumkits out, Me and C. are dancing a tango (or two, if they shout Otro! Salon Canning style).

Tango-wise since London I’m feeling a bit rusty: our friends Steve and Debbie of Tango UK treated us like a King and Queen when we turned up at Bramshaw for the tea dance, we enjoyed a lovely night at Burley although I managed to get lost in the New Forest afterwards, and Shrewsbury Tango have welcomed us to their Thursday night sessions with open arms once, and hopefully by the end of this week it’ll be twice… (here are some pics of us joining in there, and in Hampshire too).

The question is though, rust aside, will we be able to impress the Golden Wedding audience with our rather ‘lacking in flicks and kicks’ social Argentine tango style? Mum has requested a bit of ‘flash’. Carlos, who adores her,  made me laugh as he commented, Well I think the way we normally dance is beautiful enough, but for you I don’t mind adding a few ‘things’…

…and that, I guess, is what the spirit of adjusting and joining in is all about.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Pick and mix

August 1, 2009 in Live your dreams, Sallycat in the UK | 25 comments

IMGP4414Day one in England and Me and C. stand on the pavement outside the post office on the Shepherd’s Bush Road, snapping away with the Pentax: a red double-decker bus; magenta Busy Lizzies spilling over baskets hanging from a wrought iron lamp post; a pristine example of a British public toilet capsule that looks like it could be an alien space craft in disguise. Do people really use those? asks a bemused C.  I make him laugh by telling him that the doors open automatically if you stay in there for too long.

I drag him into the first charity shop we come across. Can’t resist the prospect of unearthing a few recycled Brit bargains in the racks packed with familiar labels and someone else’s cast offs.  A couple of Jasper Conran shirts for him and a Monsoon top for me: ten quid. Resulting smiles: priceless.

Flushed with the pleasure of new gladrags in the bag, we decide to explore the aisles of the chemist known as Superdrug. I want to know how much the things I call ‘facewipes’ cost: you know, those totally convenient wet cloths that cleanse tone and something else all in one… I’ve always been mega lazy when it comes to skincare and thus a big fan, but in Buenos Aires if it says Nivea or any name I recognise on the cover, it’s out of my price bracket: In Argentina I resort to the Farmacity own brand and they’re between $9pesos and $12pesos (one pound fifty to two quid) for twenty five. Superdrug’s version looks a lot more luxurious and is only 99p for forty. I buy three packs. We’ve got to make a list of all the things we’re taking back with us, I say. L’Oreal hair dye won’t be on it. Six pounds fifty in Superdrug. Three quid in Buenos Aires.

Round the back of Shepherd’s Bush’s second hand stores and  chemists we find Westfield, apparently the biggest shopping mall in Europe. We wander in… and out in about five seconds flat. C. is open mouthed to see people propping up the champagne bar in the designer section at 4pm… Everyone’s drinking, he says. We’ve just passed Walkabout, the Australian branded bar, overflowing with Saturday afternoon ‘beer glass in hand’ punters. I meanwhile am open mouthed at the number of people weighed down by an excessive number of designer carrier bags – haven’t they heard that Britain is supposed to be in the grip of a recession?

Tango Negracha-style shows no signs of being knocked by economics either, despite costing ten quid to get in (that’s more than $60pesos each… bloody hell!): it’s chocca. Carlos announces to me that he could be in La Viruta. The performance is by folk who normally hang out there… though I think he probably means the number of times he gets kicked. To my amazement I end up dancing with Shev down in the basement where there’s more space and the music’s electronic: he leads me a load of fun stuff I don’t normally do and I end up laughing a lot. I can’t help wondering what my milonguero boys would make of it all, and as the night progresses I do think of them and their closer than close embraces. I miss the familiar music too: even much of the traditional stuff upstairs isn’t really what I’m used to. But these days I’m celebrating the differences… or doing my best to anyway, so I throw myself into our first night on the London tango town. I confess that I don’t really want to leave at 3.30am when I turn to discover that my host has his tango shoes off and his coat on. That’s the adrenalin of travel across cultures for you, even a fifteen hour flight and zero sleep for two days couldn’t stop me wanting to dance and talk and meet new people and dance some more, until dawn. I silently give thanks that in Buenos Aires I can always get the bus home, or if desperate a pretty cheap taxi, and never need a car or to rely on anyone for a lift. Freedom. I must have it to feel joy and I know it. And it is fabulous to know it, and to normally have it.

I’m starving after all that dancing and I shout, Stop! as into view comes a petrol station bearing a M&S Simply Food sign that promises a treasure chest of goodies totally and utterly unheard of in Buenos Aires. I leave the boys in the car and it is touch and go whether they will ever see me again as I get lost in the shelves of convenience bacon and egg triple-decker sandwiches on brown rye bread, 4-packs of chocolate eclairs (that I have been known to eat in one sitting in lives past), 500ml tubs of fresh full fat custard… Half an hour later I’m at the kitchen table tucking into two enormous scones that ooze with strawberry jam and cream and I’m thinking that I absolutely will not care if I never see another plate of Argentine medialunas again. I start fantasising about how I can persuade M&S to open a store in Las Cañitas. As I eat jam and cream I feel like I am in the enviable position of standing in front of a giant pick and mix stand. An M&S scone from a Shepherds Bush petrol station at 4am; the sight of my Argentine in a five quid Jasper Conran shirt from Oxfam; the fun embrace of a British friend in the basement of a packed Holborn tango club… all London treats. Things to love.

Now, one week after Negracha and with a few days in the exquisitely beautiful and green Hampshire countryside behind me, I know a few things that I don’t love about me in this country too: having to drive miles just to find a pint of milk; not leaving myself enough time in my schedule to write; being invited to dance tango to music that isn’t even remotely recognisable as tango music. But, Brilliant! I shout in my most welcoming voice to all three. The first I can put up with for a few weeks; the second I can change from today; the third… I’m just saying politely, No, sorry, I can’t dance tango to this. Easy. It’s just bloody great to know who I am, what works, what doesn’t work, what I want and what I don’t want, and not being afraid to say so.

When you travel you take yourself with you right? I used to say that in a rather negative way. Like, Oh well be careful thinking that you can go and live in another country and everything will be different, because it won’t – you take yourself with you after all… What does that mean exactly? That we’re all screwed up and so we’ll screw up our lives wherever we go? But what if we are not screwed up. What if we know joy in one land and we are determined to carry that joy with us to another. Might that not be possible too? Well it damn well is.

I do see that I have to watch out for getting sucked in to ways that may be the norm here, but are no longer my norm (like not wanting to offend anyone, not saying no even when I long to, not making time for art over duty)… but that’s ok. I am learning to protect my joy. And I will do so whatever land I’m in. Is it selfish? Maybe. But on the other hand if, when I face you, I have not got joy in my heart, then I’m wasting your time as well as mine: across the coffee table; on the dance floor; on this blog page. Until this morning I haven’t wanted to write a word since I left Argentina. Today I woke at 5am and the words were desperate to escape. So here I am. Saturday morning. Rain pouring outside. Hampshire, England. Pick and mixing my life: Carlos asleep in the next room; a great and wonderful friend down the corridor; an unplanned day stretching ahead; dancing tango tonight in the New Forest. Mañana another favourite New Forest tango home of mine: Bramshaw. Monday, my family.

You take yourself with you when you travel? Yes you do. And for the very first time in my life, I’m taking a me I love, a me who at last is learning to fill her suitcases not only with tango shoes but with un-squashable Barbie fuelled honesty and joy. And how bloody marvellous is that?

Happy rest of the weekend guys. Till soon, from the most beautiful England that it is in my power to create,

Sallycat

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When tango cultures meet

April 20, 2008 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires | 16 comments

IMGP9601 Back in January I wrote about the clashing of two tango cultures: his (Argentine) and mine (English):

When tango cultures cross

It is quite something for me to look back on that post and to sense the emotion, the frustration, the confusion that I felt at the time. Now Carlos has travelled to England and he has seen first hand my tango roots. But, has anything changed?

Well, how did ‘mi gran amor’ find the tango experience in England?

I think on the whole he loved it. I have lots of girlfriends in English tango, and other English women read this blog. Quite honestly Carlos was delighted to find that he did not once have to ask an English woman, ‘Bailas?’ They asked him. But he also found that if he did ask, his invitation was always accepted. We are a friendly bunch in Inglaterra, and I guess we don’t get that many Argentinos passing through. And I always joke to Carlos, that because of this blog, he is probably the most famous plumber on the planet! He has been unerringly generous in allowing me to write about him, from the start, and I think that the English have grown to love him for it. He was not a stranger over there: people recognised his beautiful brown eyes with their a hint of ‘tristeza’, his gentle tango embrace, his generous heart, and he was welcomed. I was proud beyond imagining to see him take my friends in his arms, and offer them the piece of his soul that is his ‘tango argentino’, his love of the music (when he recognised the music of course!), his Argentina. I was happy to share him. And he talks fondly now of his ‘English girls’. ‘Have any of my friends written to you?’ he asks me almost daily. Girls, he remembers every one of your dances. He misses you. Get over here!

Carlos rarely talks to me about anyone he dances with. He is not one to describe his tango experiences. I have never heard him complain about lack of skill, compare dance partners, or say anything negative at all. Occasionally he may comment to me that someone is a bit tall for him, but that is as far as it goes. He is a gentleman when it comes to tango. Ah well, I guess he is just a gentleman, full stop. And so, I have had to drag out of him his general impressions of dancing tango in England and basically it boils down to the fact that the women are perhaps not as relaxed in his arms as he is used to, perhaps not quite as comfortable in a close embrace as he is used to, perhaps holding back slightly from allowing their souls to dance, without even realising it… I understand this because I felt it in the men too. I wanted to say to many men, ‘Please, just for me, forget the steps… hold me, feel the music, and give me your soul. Then I can give you mine.’

I know how it was for me back in my previous life. I wanted to dance great didn’t I? You all know how much I wanted to dance great. I went to hundreds of classes in England. I loved it when we learned new moves. After one week I was begging my teacher to show me ochos, before I could walk of course… because I wanted to look good, follow everything that was led, be the best at tango, fast. I harassed my ‘dream dancer of Hampshire’ to show me ‘boleos’, ‘ganchos’, ‘volcadas’. He kept telling me to practice walking. I was angry. I learned to dance in an ‘open embrace’ and felt very uncomfortable if someone I didn’t know pulled me in close. For a start I was worried that if I couldn’t sneak a look at the floor, I wouldn’t be able to follow well. Mmmmm…

Now, I am not one to write much about my tango partners, individually that is, unless they are called Carlos. I respect their privacy, as I hope they do mine. And I had some lovely partners in England, and some magical tangos. So what I am about to say now is a general impression, nothing more. It is how I felt upon returning to my tango birthplace. And I can say it because I understand it, or at least I understand how I fitted in to the same overall impression when I lived in England, and probably would if I still lived there now. I am no expert I know.  And so I can only share what I feel as of this minute. And that might change in the future. I have learned some hard lessons in tango since I arrived here. I have written about them. I expect there will be more to come. I am still a beginner in my tango journey. I am being taught by every single man, including the English man, who walks towards me on the dance floor, by every single person that I see dance, and by my own emerging soul, as ‘lentamente’ it learns to speak its truths. And now, for better or for worse, it wants to speak about this.

I don’t honestly know how I have come to discover the magic of the connection of souls in tango. It came gradually as I danced and as I watched dancers here in Buenos Aires. It came with a bit of time. It sneaked into my understanding, unobserved. I think it flowed in to the space that was created by my ‘tango ego’ ebbing away as I learned my tougher ‘tango lessons’. And I believe that being in Buenos Aires for me, was a huge factor in all of this.  Here I learned how to let go and forget myself in life, and on the dance floor. Today, my surrender to the music and my tango partner allows my soul to breathe his breath, my heart to beat with his, my body to feel and respond to the dance of his soul… When I returned to England, I definitely danced more flamboyant tango then I ever dance here, apart from with Ariel in private perhaps, and sometimes it was fun, a laugh, a challenge, BUT for the most part, it wasn’t the tango that I have now personally come to live for: what I think of as the tango of the soul.

In the beginning of this last trip to England, I did exactly what I do here. I would step up to a man, enter his embrace, gently reach out for his soul… and, initially I was shocked, to often find it blocked. If I am honest, the Milongas in England felt to me to be full of men’s souls dancing trapped in boxes. And the boxes felt to me to be made of  steps, of sequences, of moves, of anxiety to ‘perform’, and perhaps too on occasion, of the ‘great British reserve’. It is indeed true that sometimes the boxes were quite pretty and decorative with complicated patterns on the outsides, but the problem was that I wanted to rip the box open and get at the treasure inside.  I felt a sadness that often, the man wasn’t offering me the sensual dance of his soul, he was shoving at me everything that his body had learned to do, with no pauses, no silences, no feeling. He was giving me a part of him yes, but it felt like the hard shell of him, and I felt that this shell was born in his head. I wanted to break through his ‘brain barrier’, with an ice pick (if I’m really honest), and find his heart beat, his breath, his music, his suffering, his joy. I would close my eyes in those first moments of the embrace, and my soul would lean towards him, hoping, longing, but then… a jerk, a sudden unwelcome and sharp opening of the embrace, a shove off axis, a move learned in class maybe that same night and sometimes poorly led, a compensation by my body (now totally alert and on guard), an equal and opposite reaction: my yearning locked away in an equivalent box until I could offer it to my next partner, the magic with this one being not even a remote possibility. My reactive thinking even started to block out my soul too. I began to feel nervous that if I didn’t follow everything, ‘they’ would say, ‘Bloody hell, she still can’t dance… and she’s been in Buenos Aires exactly HOW LONG?’  As time passed in England, I regret to say that apart from with a few partners, my soul didn’t even make the effort to reach out. It learned not to bother because it wanted to avoid yet another rejection.

Of course what I cannot know is whe
ther English women sometimes feel to their partners as if they dance trapped inside boxes too… but I will say that I know I did for quite some time. I think I did a rather excellent job of constructing mine and wrapping it in layers of some slightly misplaced dreams of winning the ‘Tango Mundial’ within a year of arriving in Buenos Aires. Lucky for me it was, that the men of Argentina, and particularly Ariel and Carlos, have patiently unwrapped me. I don’t think I’m anywhere near ‘naked’ yet, but one day I think I would like to be. So I’ll keep dancing.

Now I am NOT criticising anything about English dancers, after all I am one. And my tango experiences are not always perfect here either. It was just a different experience in general, and one which resulted in these feelings.  I have no idea how it is possible to be taught or to learn to dance with your soul. All I am saying is that you CAN. And it’s worth it. And some of you do it already, by the way… and you will be the ones who get the queues of women lining up for you. Guys, you can make a woman putty in your arms if you search for her, listen to her, care for her, love her, wait for her, invite her, respect her, dance WITH her, or at least let her know that you have noticed that she is there. You might do nothing fancy with your feet, but she will feel AMAZING and so will you! Oh and it helps if you actually listen to the music, because she might be listening too.

Phew! My soul feels better now! It has let out its ‘Edvard Munch’ scream.

So back to Carlos and me. Well, it is early days to  know how things have changed for us, but I think they may have. We have only been out dancing twice since we got back: La Milonguita (Friday night) and Club Independencia (the next Friday night). Both times, Carlos invited friends of mine to dance, without any nudges, glances or any kind of encouragement at all from me. Both times no-one else invited me. Afterwards he teased me about his ‘girls’. I am just happy to sense that he is more relaxed. I think perhaps what he did see in England was that people dance together for pleasure on the dance floor, but that on the whole we are not spending every last second scheming to get each other into bed, to steal each others partners, to invite each other for ‘coffee’ after one tanda, to race off to a ‘telo’ after the Milonga. Now I’m not saying everyone is doing all of that here either… well not all of the time anyway. The way I see it, at least there is a healthy dose of passion in tango in Buenos Aires and I can appreciate the valuable side of that now. Maybe it comes from the power surges resulting from the exchange of souls. Maybe one day England will be exactly the same if those boxes get torn open!

And as for me, well I am far more laid back now about how many dance partners I have here. After all there is a limit to the number of times I can fully offer my soul in one night, and I want to be able to give, as well as receive. In that respect, I have firmly exchanged quality for quantity. I certainly danced with many men in England, and it is almost as if for now, it has helped me get something right out of my system. And it is definitely true, that after three weeks of dancing without him, I longed for Carlos to arrive and take me into his tango embrace.

On reflection, I think not only English tango, but the entire experience of sharing an extremely colourful journey to England,  has given both Carlos and me a fresh perspective to enlighten our relationship in every respect, and within that our tango relationship is on firmer ground too. And I do believe that as a result, our two tango cultures are at last beginning to find a way to meet, and maybe even tentatively kiss for the first time… just like we were doing in the street outside La Viruta, this time last year.

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When tango cultures cross

January 6, 2008 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 19 comments

DSCF2803One of the first in depth conversations I had in 2008 was about tango. Actually it was more than that. It was a discussion, an exploration of ideas, a negotiation. And it was with my Argentine.

I would say that from the day we became ‘more than friends’, our hottest topic, of conversation, and I mean in the sense of the most contentious, has been tango. When I was single in Buenos Aires, tango was relatively straightforward. I went out to dance alone, danced with many different men, came home alone. There were some downsides. Some men clearly wanted something more than dancing and I had to develop my ‘fria’ side in order to deal with them. But I mastered the ‘cabeceo’ and so was able to avoid most of the guys that I didn’t enjoy for whatever reason. I also faced the nights when I was not a popular choice of dance partner, and the worst of those were when I was seated with women far younger and far more attractive than me: ego killing nights. But on the whole there were few complications. I knew where I was. I went out whenever I wanted. I danced with whomever I wanted. I experienced the full range of tango connections, and I fell in love with one of them…

And there the negotiation began. I learned fast that the meeting of two separate tango journeys and ‘el amor’ can complicate matters considerably. Now I suspect that this is true whatever corner of the world you live in, but possibly the complications are greater when you live in Argentina and two different tango cultures meet. I only have experience of England. There I did date someone in tango for a while, but we just carried on as we had when we were single: we went to the Milonga together but once there we both danced with whoever we wanted to. Indeed the tradition where I lived in the south of England was that if someone asked you to dance, you tried to avoid saying no. There was no ‘cabeceo’, and it was generally accepted that if you were there, whoever you with there with, you were an available dance partner. The fact that there are no tables in my local English Milongas assists this situation. When you are all just sitting round the walls on chairs it’s not always obvious who is with who. I rarely saw a tango couple who danced exclusively with each other.

So what traditions does Milonga culture offer the ‘love-tango’ partnership in Buenos Aires? Here’s my experience:

  1. At most Milongas there are tables. A couple may be seated together at the same table or may choose to be seated separately. At more traditional Milongas there are separate areas for men, women and groups or couples.
  2. If you go to a Milonga as a couple, sit together, and the man does not get up to dance with other women, other men will stay away. The etiquette is that you have gone to the Milonga together and you are therefore not seen as an available dance partner.
  3. If you do exactly as above, it is possible that a known male friend or dance acquaintance may approach the table to greet you both, and may request the permission of the man to dance with the woman.
  4. If you do exactly as above but the man gets up and dances with other women, and the woman then actively practices the ‘cabeceo’, then some other men may dance with her.
  5. If you go to the Milonga together but ask to be seated separately then both the woman and man are free to practice the ‘cabeceo’ as if solo, and will be able to dance with many partners as well as with each other during the evening. In this case the ‘tango-lovers’ will be able to dance together but not easily share a seated conversation, a drink or food.

A clue to why perhaps tango becomes difficult for those from England in ‘el amor’ with an Argentino, lies in the third point above: ‘and may request the permission of the man to dance with the woman’. I think that when you are with someone in Buenos Aires, you are with them, and you are seen as being theirs. In life, this is pretty much the same as in England in terms of monogamous relationships, but in terms of tango there is perhaps more of a difference. I guess that if the couple are both at a stage in their tango journey where they want to dance with many other partners, then a plan to do so may be fairly easily agreed. But if one partner is at a stage where they are happy to dance exclusively with their partner, and the other is not… well then the situation becomes more complex. The fact that, in my limited experience, Argentine culture seems to support the belief that if you, as a woman, go out to dance alone then you might also be available, or that men may think that you are available complicates things further.

So far my solution to this challenge has been to dance with my partner at night, and to go out alone, or with girlfriends in the afternoon. But surprises crop up from time to time even when I follow this rule:

  • Out with him and a stranger approaches the table and asks me to dance. (To be honest only a foreigner would do this, who doesn’t know any better. But it has happened to me.)
  • Out with him and someone I know or who knows us both, approaches as a tanda is starting and asks me to dance. If they ask him first, I am grateful for their courtesy. If they don’t ask him first, then I wish they had and I feel uncomfortable. I feel more uncomfortable if the tanda is favourite music of ours.
  • Out with him, he leaves the table for example, to go to the bar. Someone approaches the table and asks me to dance.

Situations like this, handled badly, can put a big fly in the ointment of a calm night out with an Argentine ‘tango-love’.

So far we haven’t tried the ‘go to the Milonga together but dance with others’ scenarios as described in 4. and 5. above. In our latest conversation we talked about trying number 4. I can’t honestly imagine going as far as sitting separately. Number 4. probably will work best if we go with a group of friends and so it will be less obvious who is with who. I think we both feel a bit nervous about the whole thing. However at the moment, my sentiment is that I went through quite a lot to get here in the first place and the reason I came was to dance tango. My English culture tells me that it fine to dance with many partners, that it is normal to go out dancing with girlfriends. I don’t want to lose this perhaps ‘innocent’ view of tango. At the same time I have to try to understand my partner’s culturally different viewpoint and somehow together we have to try and find a meeting point, which is acceptable to us both.

Our discussion did at least make us laugh. We tackled it with such seriousness and respect one for the other, but at one point we both commented that anyone would think we were talking about joining a ’swingers club’ or ‘wife swapping.’ We were only actually talking about tango. But what I realise is that here in Buenos Aires there is so much more to tango, than just tango as I used to think of it. For an Argentine there is history, tradition, culture, Milonga etiquettes, past personal experiences, the numerous past experiences of friends. For me, originally there was experience of a few months of the English Milonga scene, but now for me too, all the other things have come into play. Finally we agreed that we are entering a phase of experimentation, that we are in it together, and that we have to accept that it may in the end be for the better or for the worse.

This is a complicated matter to write about. I don’t want to reveal all aspects of our wide ranging debate, but I want to convey some of the reality of ‘el amor y el tango’ in Buenos Aires. I have realised that I may have come here with various ideas of how my tango journey would pan out, but I never contemplated the consequences for my tango or indeed for any prospective relationship, of falling in love with a tango dancer who also happens to be Argentine. One thing is clear. When tango cultures cross, negotiation has to follow.

And so begins 2008!

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Love changes everything…

October 19, 2007 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 4 comments

IMGP6745 Up until yesterday my return flight to England was booked for 7th December and rushing towards me. Every time I looked at my Argentine I saw his face fading into the distance at Ministro Pistarini, and me walking onto the plane and into six weeks including Christmas and New Year without him, and two months without Buenos Aires, without sun. If I thought hard enough I could almost feel the tears running down my face.

I left the UK on 8th March this year with a twelve month ticket, but a return date booked for 7th June. I thought I might only stay three months. Mmmmmm… After a week I knew three months would not even be long enough to work out which Milonga I liked best on a Monday night, and so I changed the ticket to 7th December - then far, far in the distance.

I have got to go back to England. I have a flat to clear ready for renting. I have a car to sell. I need to put my paperwork in order. I have to apply for a new passport, prepare documents for an Argentine visa application. On the emotional side I am longing to see my family and I have many mates to catch up with. And I have a few tangos to dance with old friends because who knows when I may get the chance to tango in England again? Originally I planned two months on British soil. But last week two months began to feel like a lifetime.

It usually takes me minutes to make any decision, but this one took me a few days, mainly because I was concerned for my family. How would they feel about me staying out here for longer, having less time with them? My mum, as always, was a total star. ‘Try and change the ticket Sal,’ she said, ‘If you can, you can and if you can’t, you can’t. Put it in the hands of the Gods.’ So I did, and they (in this case British Airways) decided that I could have ’la Navidad’ here with my love, and New Year in England. Now I will leave Argentina on December 28th. I will have three more weeks here. I will have three weeks there to get my life in order before my Argentine flies into my arms and into the culture shock of the cost of eating out in England. My time alone at ‘home’ is now going to be very busy, with no hours free to pine for a lover. I am happy. My Argentine is delighted. My family are calmly understanding, as ever.

So that then, is my plan as of today. Someone said to me recently that people often ask him about me and my plans. He says that he usually replies that he doesn’t think even I know what my plans are. He is right. I don’t. Plans always end up changing. And the ones that don’t change on their own, I usually change. I reckon it’s just better to go with the flow, and follow your heart day to day. Maybe it seems a bit random. But this year, it’s the method that has worked for me: it took me to Mongolia, brought tango into my life, got me to Buenos Aires, put me standing next to my Argentine in La Glorieta… and now it will take me to England for five weeks instead of two months. Not a lot of difference I hear you cry. Ah but, you see, love changes hours into minutes and minutes into hours. And these days, I’m a hopeless romantic.

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Argentina v England?

October 14, 2007 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 5 comments

IMGP7988 It was England’s turn to win again yesterday, beating the French in the semi finals of the Rugby World Cup.  If Argentina beat South Africa today, next weekend I will be watching my two homelands battle it out for the great prize. Who will I be supporting? Where does my heart lie?

It’s been a strange week. I’ve enjoyed a sudden influx of people, old friends and new, and it has mixed things up for me. Two weeks ago I was considering what it would be like to welcome visitors from England. Now they are here and I have the answer. They brought England back into my life, into my head and into my heart. Not easy. When I left my country in many ways I cut myself off from it. I had to, to give myself a chance of settling here. My new life was mine and mine alone. Yes of course I have shared parts of it with friends, with my family, and on this blog, but I have had no-one from home witnessing how I live day to day, seeing my ups and my downs. 

On the one hand it has been exciting to welcome people, show them the things I love the most, share my favourite places. On the other, they have had many questions for me. It gets the brain whirring. It drags up things from the past. It could start worries for the future. I have had to keep myself firmly grounded in the moment this week. It is also difficult to know whether to be honest with visitors about how I am doing day to day: should I put on a brave face in my darker moments and make out that my life is always perfect here? I decided no. I am not a tour guide. I don’t have to smile and keep the party going. I need to be honest about where I am on my journey, and so I have been. This week I have had tired days, I have had sad days, I have had happy and exciting days, and I have shared them all! The truth is I am just not a person who can hide how I am feeling. But because I have shared my thoughts, I have had some great feedback and support. And that I guess is the reward for honesty.

To my delight, I’ve also had some new friends walk into my life at the same time: C. from Canada and  H. who lives here, whose tango blogs I love to read; F. from Mendoza and N. from Sweden, both tango dancers. A month ago I was wondering if I would ever hook up with new girlfriends, mine having all gone back to their own countries. And now look at me:  I am surrounded by lovely friendly people.

Last night we all headed out to Italia Unita, the Milonga held at Sabor a Tango. My ‘old friends’ Los Reyes were playing so for me it was a must. Around the table was a delicious mix of England, Argentina and Canada. I was saying goodbye to David and Sara who flew home today, welcoming Melody who arrived a few days ago, and sharing in the latest great tango adventure of my new Canadian friend. It was a happy night for me.

When I reflect a little on my experiences this week I have learned that it is impossible to completely cut off from a past life, and also most importantly, that I do not want to. Whatever the past has included it has made me who I am today and every aspect of it should be celebrated and treasured. I have often thought that it is the fact that I have survived the past that gives me hope for the future. All the experiences I have had, all the mistakes I have made and recovered from, all the lessons I have learned, all of these sit inside me and help me to know that I can handle whatever the future throws my way. I am living my dream yes, but I am not living in some isolated fantasy. Reality means interacting with other people, whether they are from England, or from anywhere else. Reality means handling the consequences of these human interactions. The important thing for me is that I continue to be myself: I must be unafraid to let people see who I am, and that I sometimes walk a rocky path. This is the way to get the support that I need, the continued freedom to be ‘2007 Sally’, and the peace of mind to feel comfortable in my new life – regardless of the country that I am living in.

And if Argentina win the rugby this afternoon and meet England in the final, I will be cheering inside, whatever the result!

See pictures of La Baldosa and Italia Unita (plus English visitors)

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The English are coming…

October 2, 2007 in Diary of a Tango Dancer in Buenos Aires, Live your dreams | 2 comments

IMGP7844 Today is the beginning of a whole new phase in my great adventure. Tonight I will start welcoming guests from England to this city of tango dreams. Not all are coming especially to see me: some had holidays planned before I ever decided to travel; some are expecting to stay for a year or more; some are heading this way at this moment in time, in part, because I am here. I feel slightly strange.

On the one hand I am excited beyond words to see people I know from home, show them the places I love, help them to get the most out of their trips. Just to talk to an English person who knows me a little, who knows people I know, who can talk to me about the things back home… that will be amazing. On the other hand I am just getting used to the life I am carving out, and I wonder how things might change. I know my Argentine is slightly nervous. It is a strange moment when people from your lover’s past life start arriving. In a sense I and he have felt a greater freedom because I have had no-one here who knows me.

I did have one visitor early on, in fact he was here during the days when Carlos and I were still bumping into each other by chance at Milongas. He was with me when Carlos invited me for the first time to go on to La Viruta with him from Canning at 3.30am, for ‘cafe con leche y medialunas’! I can remember that he was slightly anxious about me heading off into the night with a stranger. I remember his concern and how it made me feel. I understood, but at the same time there is something liberating about not having concerned friends at your side. And back then I was in a moment where I was fighting for my independence, pushing my boundaries, learning to cope alone. I desperately needed to feel free. I wanted to escape from the concern of friends. Truthfully it was one reason why I left England.

When my husband left I needed my friends around me. They were wonderful. I could not have managed without their support. I am blessed with amazing friends and I will always be grateful for what they did for me. But there came a moment when I felt a burning need to break free from my status quo. I can never explain why I felt this but it was as if, in order to know who I was as an individual, I had to walk alone. I chose to do that by travelling to Argentina to dance tango. Perhaps my choices have seemed selfish, risky or at the very least slightly crazy. But I was 44 years old and for the first time in my life, ready to follow a dream. I have often hoped that it was possible for my friends to understand why I left, but maybe it isn’t always possible to completely understand something unless you have felt it too. I saw so much concern for me in the faces of people who love me but I had to shut it out because if their concern had become doubts in my head, I might never have stepped onto the plane. Then when I arrived here I knew that if I was to make a real go at starting a new life in a foreign land, I had to let go of England. If I kept my head and my heart back there, I could never truly be here. At times I longed for visitors, familiar faces, familiar voices. But I resolved lonely moments by getting out and exploring here, rather than talking with someone back home. It wasn’t always an easy choice but it was what I had to do to survive and grow.

I think that it has been exactly as it was meant to be that in the past six months no-one from England has come to visit. I have been given time to adjust, time to forge a new way of living that I love because I have had no-one to remind me of my old ways, my old life. Now I hope that I am sure enough in my path to welcome my visitors and greet my friends as the woman that I am now. I am not the same person that I was when I left England. And the number one change in me is that I am truly happy and at peace in the life that I am slowly creating. And surely that is something that I should be proud of and willing to share with anyone.

Incidentally, the painting above is outside a school in La Boca and you can see more gorgeous pictures of this barrio and of a park in Palermo taken by me this weekend. Just click on the link below:

See pictures of my walks in the Buenos Aires sun this weekend

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