Moving, always Moving

Yesterday's post is weird. Probably also very incomprehensible.

It was one of my survival techniques.

No, I wasn't hanging over a cliff, caught between a lion and a crocodile, nothing like that. If only my life had real drama instead of those I make up with which to entertain myself and usually one other person.

Again I had to say "goodbye", and again to the same person. So instead of letting the pain get to me and make me do something stupid like trying to undo the goodbye and contact that person, I decided to let my mind fly in the course of a farewell with a different person. By "letting my mind fly" I mean just letting it go wherever it wanted to. It was much better, healthier, safer for everyone, if I let my mind and heart wander in the land of imaginations and writing than to act it out in real life.

And it worked. Afterward I felt better.

I have other "survival" techniques. Mainly with friends. A friend called me up just after the chaotic piece was written, and we met up for sushi. We shared our thoughts risen from the pain we both bore; though the pain was different for each person, there was too much in common not to let it out and by doing so help the others. My two closest people on this continent are here, in this little town. I will miss them. That friend told me she would miss just extemporaneously show up and go have sushi with me. I am sure I will make great friends in the big bad City. But no friend replaces another. Close friendships are different in many ways, sometimes overlap in their looks, their functions, but in the end, they are, like the people in each, distinct. But one thing all my closest friends have done for me, and me for them, is being part of this "survival" technique. Again, this isn't survival like the "real" ones people in war-torn nations or victims of economic and political misfortunes. This is just a personal one, one that involves families, other friends, and of course, the all-too pervasive theme of love.

This week continues to be one of soul-searching. It is my last week in this little town. I don't really have a lot of time because of work, which I enjoy a bit more every day. This week, however, is squeezed between two major moves.

The first is the weekend that had passed. It was the tango festival that has for the past five years, this being its sixth event, been my favorite festival of all, and I have been to a lot, perhaps too many for my own sake. Now I don't go to festivals anymore. I used to feel negative when New Yorkers told me they didn't need to go anywhere since it was great already in New York. But in some ways I now agree with them. I am tired of the traveling. I am happy to be with the tango people without seeking to get the best dances possible. And every now and then, if I am really bored of the same old people, I can always go to Buenos Aires or one of the mini tango events reachable by land transportation.

In any case, again, I enjoyed this festival very much. And this year I really danced a lot, more than any other year. Saturday night I walked on the dance floor at 11:30PM and left after the last song at 6:30AM. My feet were in so much pain that after three hours of sleep I spent another three hours trying quiet their complaints. Men usually don't have feet pain problems in tango, unless you dance as much as I did.

What makes a festival great? Good dancers is one part. But the atmosphere is another. I suppose I am biased that it's in the medical school, in the town I know. Sadly, and completely my own fault, I hardly danced with most people from my own community. I just wanted to dance with the best dancers for no other reason than feeling good. I felt a little guilty, but oh well. They will live, even if forever I will be branded as a snob.

The people make a difference. And I knew a lot of women there already, after five and a half years of dancing (interrupted only by ill-fated relationships that took me away from tango, which is ironic since all the women involved I met in tango). Saturday night I got to dance my last dance with the Montreal woman I met in Buenos Aires. The one who spent almost every second with me, who spoke almost exclusively in Spanish with me, who made me laugh, and most important of all, who made me realize at that point that there were indeed great women out there who could make me happy, who could be in sync with me. And when I hung out with her and the rest of the gang again for dinner, it seemed that we still had that same connection. So it was very nice to be able to finish a very long night with a wonderful tanda with her. After all, we went to all the practicas together, met the locals together, just a few months ago.

It did not escape my notice of how ironic it was that on the Saturday night performance I found myself purely by coincidence sitting between this Montreal woman and the woman of my current, ending drama. The juxtaposition reminded me that my life need not be black and white, and in fact, it has many facets, many ways of expressing itself. Sometimes I forget that, like when I get so hung up with the drama of the current problem that I can't imagine life otherwise. And here they were, each representing a different thread of behavior in my life, so different. The juxtaposition gave me hope as well as a smile from the irony of the situation.

I say all this to illustrate how a festival isn't just some composite of dances. For me, at least, it brings back a lot of memories, and more important than memories, it puts my present in perspective, much in the way that a hiker takes a break to look back at how much he had accomplished.

The tango fest started this week. And the move to New York will end it. Friday I will pack as much as I can in my little blue car and drive down to Queens, not too far from where my former best friend lives, the one who still doesn't bother to write back to me. Not too far from a whole slew of tango dancers. They are acquaintances, even if some I have spent some time talking to, not just dumb, superficial stuff. But to be a real friend, you have to take some risks. I remember when a tango friend made fun of me for calling her my tango friend and not a real friend, and in that friendly mockery is an understanding of one of my weaknesses: putting things into categories. I was touched by her joke. And even more touched when she told me that I was more than just a tango friend for her. That's when we became close, even though she had moved to another timezone.

I don't think much about friendships in New York. I know there are people I can talk to, even some would be willing to spend time with me. Unlike the past, I am not so eager to spend time with people for the sake of feeling I have people in my life. I am not insecure about myself in terms of family and friends. Thanks to many years of patience of friends who had to endure my insecurities with them, I finally reached a point where I am all right being alone, going to places alone, being happy alone.

I am not completely there yet, of course.

If I had fallen in love with myself, as one of my closest friends here has urged that we all do, I wouldn't have anymore drama in my life, at least not the kinds I make. I wish I could feel secure when it comes to women who come into my life, reject my romantic advances without totally disappearing, thereby giving me unattainable hopes of a reversal of that rejection. In such situations I feel like I was many years ago. The neediness, the tantrum, the anger all flood back.

But to look at the bright side, I don't do this with my friends, and I have a lot of great ones now.

I just started inspecting what I want to move this weekend. It's already 10:30. I am a little apprehensive about the move. Not so much move to New York since there isn't much room there to take my stuff except the most essential. The anxiety is about leaving here, this little town, this big house. Leaving my stuff. Moving them. The emotional charge as well as the pragmatic burdens. I wish I had someone to be here, giving me the emotional buttress and being practical at the same time. But then again, I have moved many times in my life, mostly alone. And what I have learned from those experiences is that I am fully capable of doing just about anything in my life, but friends, and my Dad (the only one ever to help me move in my family), provided emotional support that meant more than the muscles needed to move my boxes.

So, New York, here I come! With a train full of memories and a bigger truck load of hopes.