Archive for March, 2010

The sun seems to set too soon over Buenos Aires as Summer comes to a close and I make my way toward the Northern Hemisphere in anticipation of Spring. I have said goodbye to my best friend and watched him turn the corner onto Defensa as the San Telmo Street Fair noisily winds down for another week. I may never see him again.

It’s hard to notice how exhausting Buenos Aires is when you’re caught up in the middle of it. But between flannel sheets in the dark and almost cloying silence of the suburbs of Calgary I notice the drain. I feel weary, but in other ways – full. There are surprisingly few tears (so far) and I believe that I’ve made the right decision – to come home. I feel anxious but it is not the anxiety of loss, regret, fear and despair as has accompanied me so often on this journey but the excitement over the opportunity to nurture and share the many seeds I have sown, germinated and grown in the belly of Argentina.

My first practica upon return is disappointing – as I knew it would be. I look forward to May when I will attend a Tango Festival in Vancouver (vantangofest.com) and meanwhile plan to infuse new energy into my own small community. I hope there is enough here for me in return. It crosses my mind that I may be better off to go off Tango (cold turkey) and return to Ballroom – or take up skydiving instead – rather than suffer further disappointment. Nothing can compete Buenos Aires.

Consolation Tango Shoes

My new Comme Il Faut shoes are small consolation for the tango tragedy of leaving one love behind for another – Buenos Aires for Calgary – but like I’ve often said – if the dance isn’t going well at least I have these great shoes hugging my feet while I weep . . .

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This will be my last entry (except for the ones in draft that I will complete and intersperse throughout the previous entries). My ‘one month’ turned into almost two years and now that part of my journey is over. I will let you know a soon as I have started another blog to report on the next phase of my journey and my upcoming book – Love, Death and Tango. Thank you to all four of you who have been reading this blog and I hope that my posts can continue to be a source of information and inspiration to others who stumble upon my site in the future.

I have spent the past seven days in Tango Teacher Training. All in Spanish – there was too much talking and not enough dancing – which happens a lot in this world. After all these years, my Spanish is still not fluent so I missed many details. There were no other native English speakers in our class of 22. Usually I wouldn’t complain about too many tall, dark and handsome Italian, French and Latin men, but, I wanted to take the lead and so did they. I HAD to follow these fabulous dancers – such a tragedy . . .

The only real tragedy was the earthquake in Chile during our workshop and the couple from Concepción that could not communicate with their family. But, by the second day they were smiling and participating again. Family of friends back home in Calgary were not as fortunate.

I was blessed to be able to be included in this workshop – the perfect culmination to eight years of dancing tango and two years in Buenos Aires. I hope to share what I’ve learned with others when I return to Canada.