I couldn't sleep well, and I had less than four hours to sleep before waking up for the later train. It was partly my aching body from the gym. I found out I had lost five pounds since Thanksgiving. All that turkey and sweets from the two suppers had no visible effect.
Was my insomnia also due to my friend's news? I am not sure if it's bad news. It's hard to say what "good" news is when you're waiting for someone terminally ill to die. Her father finally passed away Saturday, six days before his birthday. When I called her, she was holding back tears, not because she doesn't believe in crying, but because she had to make her words comprehensible. She couldn't talk long; she was on her way back from the funeral. She had to attend to her family. She had always been the strongest in her family, after her dad; she always took upon the duty of taking care of the family, even though now she was living far from the tropical island that had been her home for nearly thirty years. Because she had to attend to her family, especially her mother, we couldn't talk long. After the very brief conversation, I felt an urgency to be there for her, for a captain in dire straits need comfort too. But she was too far away. The sense of helplessness surged through my eyes.
I decided to go to tango after that. To counter my helplessness with some fun to the music, to being with people that could help me with this. It turned out to be a great night. I didn't think about my best friend's news during the milonga. I danced with both people I normally had fun dancing with, but also with a few women I didn't always have a chance to. One in particular I never danced with, even though she had been in the tango scene long before I started to go to New York. The reason is quite silly. She was very mean to me when she rejected my offer, and I never could forget that or forgive her. And she never showed any interest anyway. She was the one person in New York always found dancing with all the visiting teachers, and that justified my opinion of her as a very crass and immoral tango dancer. But last night I could see her strong stare. It's funny how you could feel someone is looking at you. It was the beginning of a cabaceo but also the beginning of defrosting this silly wall so typical of tango, so typical of life, too. (A "cabaceo" is the way people ask each other to dance in Buenos Aires, where you look at someone intensely and if the connection is made, you move your head to confirm that the other person also wants to dance. It's a silent way of asking and accepting a dance.)
I say "silly" because while she was unjustified to be mean to me in her rejection, a right all women have, I was equally imbecilic for keeping a grudge. After all, she was another human being, and any human being is worth connecting to. Our connection started actually before last night. She was one of the people in this car driven by one of the tango organizers in the city, and I was squeezed in there with her along with four other people. She actually talked to me, or at least made comments. I was surprised. But I guess my surprise stemmed from the wall I helped built. And so instead of ignoring her intense stare, I looked at her and we ended up dancing the last two sets of the night. It was something I never expected, dancing with this person I have labeled as a witch (something I probably had never done in my life). And she was very friendly and we had actually conversations about my impending move to New York. On a practical level it was good to connect to her because I got along well with every one of that little clique of New York except for her. It was always a little awkward sitting with her friends and never saying even hi to her. (Or that she ever said "hi" to me!)
Tango brings out a lot of the awkwardness, stupidity, and unnecessary drama in life. I don't dislike drama in tango as I do dislike it intensely in real life. I don't dislike it in tango because it gives me a very simplified and quick way to examine where my personal difficulties are in my life. The cold war with this woman (who probably doesn't even remember rejecting me in that way since she does this to so many people, from what I have heard) reminds me of this equally stupid story. I got into a fight with my roommate from the last summer of college year before my senior year. It was over his small insult against China. (Back then I was even more insecure about my identity than now, defending China or the US without thinking at all.) I decided not to talk to him again and he took no steps to make it easier for me to do stop the silliness. But I had a check from him, and not a small one for a part-time working college student on financial aid. I then forgot to cash it before he graduated and closed his bank account. For the next five years, yes, five years, I would have dreams where we actually made up and he actually give me the money back. Money was a symbol of reconciliation, of course. And every time I woke up I became really sad that neither the money nor the reconciliation returned. We weren't strangers; we were roommates that experienced a lot together. He was with me during the final breakup with my girlfriend then, and that was the worst breakup in my life. He was also the person to introduce me to clubbing, though I never really gotten into it.
One day outside my now-previous work in the little city, I bumped into him. He was probably now some big shot doctor working at our prestigious hospital. We smiled, said hi, and asked how each other was doing. That was all. No discussion of meeting up later or even writing. We were strangers, but that's normal. And the ghost of his uncashed check disappeared with my dreams many years ago along, replaced by not only my forgiveness to him, but also forgiveness to myself. I stopped blaming myself for being petty, because I understood that his minor insult dug deep into something in me that had nothing to do with him. Nonetheless, it was strange to see him, as if a chapter that had been left open even without any new words added was finally closed.
So my pettiness with this woman revealed itself in a more benign way, but I also understood that it existed. It isn't unique to me. We all build walls instead of bridges with other human beings, often more readily doing so and building bigger and thicker walls with those we care about the most. It's about ego, it's about hurt, it's about disconnection with ourselves. When I think about love, love for my best friend, the feeling of helplessness from that love, I understand even better how stupid all this pettiness is. Like I said before, in this world, all we need is love, love for those we care about, those we don't know, those we despise, and foremost for ourselves. By doing so, we can avoid the kinds of stupid things I did with this tanguera, and instead I could get to know her, who I am sure have something to add to my experience becoming me.
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