Gateway

I saw an open door, one that I hadn’t looked at before; I went through it. I was strolling on the main commercial street of the city where I’ve been living for decades, a street that I thought I knew in every detail, but the church that I entered this morning was entirely unknown to me. Like in some returning dreams, the church had several levels, with the street one more simple and the one upstais the place where the action really was. I found myself in the middle of the New Year morning mass, it was warm and lit by candles, with music from an organon and soprana, with people kneeling, praying, one of them in deep prostration. The transition from the world of the shops and loud gregarious crowds happened without notice. 

Tango has been like this for me. This is something that many long-term dancers know: you enter a building, boring, apparently able to host to no adventures, but suddenly you hear the music; the rush and deeper breathing, you know you are in the right place, the pleasure starts mounting from the lower body to the fast-moving heart. The many undescript buildings you’d never have looked at if they hadn’t happen to be at a tango address. Remote neighbourhoods of cities you visit for some reason and when you have a free evening you start chasing the dance, neighbourhoods you’d never visit otherwise, never be aware of, even.

Tango at its happiest happens to me when I enter through its doors without any expectation, ready for whatever is waiting to unfold. When I allow myself to be kidnapped into its embrace which, with its aura of enabling rules and conventions, is the space for impossible-to-anticipate beauty and intimacy. If you are finding this today, Happy New Year! And whenever you read it, may you come across many open doors that can take you, unwarned, to the best of possible worlds.