The end is the beginning!!!!  Four weeks ago I started my journey in Recoleta Park in Buenos Aires and today I ended my journey in Recoleta Park, sitting in the sun and listening to music!!! My process of saying good bye to Buenos Aires started when Shirley left and I allowed myself the space to slowly adjust to the feeling of loss. I stayed in Recoleta where the rich live (where there are security guards at each apartment block), but in the last couple of days I visited some of the poorest areas,  I attended my last tango lessons, went for a walk with Ana Maria and I attended the open air milonga in Belgrano, a middle class area.   I have observed the day to day living of people in Buenos Aires, how a father tango with his baby daughter (I think she was a month old), how a 70 year old couple win a local tango competition, how people drink Mate in the park while listening to music and how people collect food in the garbage bins.

My impulsive decision to come to Buenos Aires was running away from unwanted feelings and I arrived in Buenos Aires vulnerable and fearful but also excited.  My objective for this trip was to learn traditional tango, that is to dance with connection and that means connecting with your partner, the music and yourself, but Buenos Aires gave me a mirror in which I could determine who I am, what do I want to do with the rest of my life and what I am prepared to do to make it happen.  I have connected with myself on a level which I were always to scared to show and it provided me the space to stay with my feelings with no judgement or expectation.  Learning to dance tango in the traditional way has provided the platform on which I can build my future career as a Craniosacral Therapist, because I learned that my body will heal itself when it feels safe, safe within and it surroundings. I have no idea how my new career will happen and thinking of the future, I have the same feelings as when I arrived in Buenos Aires.  Looking back on my experience in Buenos Aires I trust that the future can only bring another amazing experience!!!!!  I realised that I live with connection and do not have to look for it in my surroundings and that some people will choose to share that space with me and some will not and that is OK!!!!  I made piece with the way I dance in life and I share this poem with the people in Buenos Aires who enriched my life:

The Dance

I have sent you my invitation,

the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.

Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”

Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,

spiraling down into the ache within the ache,

and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward

to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.

Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,

and see who I am in the stories I live.

And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.

Show me you can risk being completely at peace,

truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,

and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.

Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,

the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.

What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,

the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.

And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business

without letting business determine who you are.

When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price,

let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world

the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember.

And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,

but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,

knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.

Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,

holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest

intentions has died away on the wind,

dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale

of the breath that is breathing us all into being,

not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”

Just take my hand and dance with me.

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Dance, HarperONE, SanFrancisco, 2001

I arrived feeling empty and I leave feeling full and looking forward to going home tomorrow!!!!!

Yes all good things come to an end and visiting Buenos Aires means you have to say good bye to friends at some stage!!!!  This time it was not me leaving first, but Shirley and Côme.  Friday night we said good bye to Comé, Sunday we said good bye to Eduardo and Patricia and Tuesday Shirley said good bye to me and Hugo!!!!

We had a great time and the only way I can express our time together is by sharing the universal card: Giving and Receiving.  This is how our friendship was the last 3 weeks!!!!

Giving and receiving always occur in balance.  It is as important to receive gratefully as it is to give voluntarily and with no expectations.  Our willingness to keep the energy flowing in and out of our lives supports the energy in expanding.  The corollary to the principle of giving and receiving is that we give only to our Selves.  Since we are all One, when we give to another we are really giving to our Selves.  Giving is receiving.  When we give without expectations and receive without judgment we honour our Oneness.

Shirley thank you very much for a great lunch on Sunday, to Eduardo and Patricia for an amazing cake!!!! and to all of you who gave so willingly!!!

Shirley and I went back to La Nacional on Saturday night, because it was suggested by a fellow student who lives in Buenos Aires and who is a friend of our teacher Hugo Daniel. This is a traditional milonga and not many tourists attend this milonga. We were seated in a good area, because Hugo booked the table and when Angil arrived I was introduced to the organiser. All these little things make a big difference whether you will be asked to dance or not. Milonga’s have their own unspoken rules.

At a Milonga in Buenos Aires the men sit on one side of the hall and the woman on the other side. There are areas where couples and groups can sit, but normally other men will not ask woman on these tables to dance. The reason for this seating arrangement is so that you can make eye contact with each other and agree to dance by a node with the head. This saves the man the embracement walking up to a lady and being refused and it removes the pressure on a lady to dance with somebody she does not want to dance with.

Margareta Westergard wrote a lovely book “Tango Passion and the rules of the game” in which she explains the rules of a milonga in Buenos Aires. Shirley, who has read the book and had a long discussion with Margareta on this topic, told me not to dance with men who walks around the dance floor looking for dances(roaming dancers). My approach is normally to learn from my own experience (some people call this stubbornness) and Saturday night was no exception.

There was this older guy roaming the floor, Shirley and I looked at each other, she ignored him, but I agreed to dance with him. I am still very nervous at the milonga’s, because I make a lot of mistakes and cannot always read the lead and therefore do not mind dancing with the less popular dancers.

During my first dance with this guy I made a couple of so called mistakes and most men would have ignored it, because the first dance is normally an introduction. This time it was different. I still do not understand Spanish and this guy could not speak English, which makes conversion between dances, very uncomfortable. He knows just enough English to tell me that he is a tango teacher and then continues to give me a lesson.

I felt like a total fool because now the hole room can see that I cannot dance. This is unusual for a milonga, because it is a social dance and not a practica. I could have said “thank you” and walked off the dance floor, but I also found it amusing and I thought it will help me to relax. I did not really relax and had another couple of stressful dances. Thank goodness they played some jive music, because that is what really relaxes me at the milonga’s!!! My dancing improved and I enjoyed the rest of the evening. As usual the floor show was amazing!!! That is another reason not to pay for a tango show, because the floor shows at the milonga’s are just so much nicer and entry fee to a milonga is a lot cheaper than a performance!!!

At about 1h00 we decided it is time to go home, but the neighbourhood is a bit dangerous at that time of night and I asked the organizer to call for a taxi. The doorman says to the manager that there is a taxi driver at the Milonga and the manager disappears into the hall to call him. We waited a few minutes and when the door opens we see this dark, dusty pink jacket coming through the door!!! I looked at Shirley and we both started to laugh!!! Thinking can this really be the “tango teacher” I danced with earlier in the evening? Surely not we say to each other!!! He comes down the stairs and it is him!!!! I say to Shirley at least we know more about this taxi driver than all the other taxi drivers.

During our trip back to Shirley’s apartment our “friend” shows us one of the tango brochures in which he advertises his services as a tango teacher and he asks me Spanish if I want the book. “Si, gracias” I reply and have to control myself not to burst into uncontrollable laughter!!!! When we looked at the advertisement at home it said: Learn to Tango in half an hour!!! Classes in English!!!!

We then realised that this guy is most probably a taxi dancer rather than a tango teacher and was probably looking for business!!!! I have to explain that there is an agency in Buenos Aires where you can rent a dancer!!!  That means you pay for a dance partner for the evening, because a woman can go to a milonga and not dance at all.     They are called “Taxi dancer’s”.   Our friend  just gave taxi dancer a whole new meaning!!!!!   We could not stop laughing and this realisation put some perspective on the events of the evening!!!!!

My stubbornness gets me into strange situations, but this one was the best so far!!!!! It also shows another side to Buenos Aires!!!!

There are just so much to do in Buenos Aires, which means one has to focus on what is really important.   For me it is experiencing the world of Tango, but I decided not to attend a Tango show.  My thinking was that I would rather take the time to dance than watch.  That changed on Thursday night when we went to “La Musa del capricho” with Hugo and 2 girls from Portugal.    It was different and more of a theatre production than a Tango performance.  It is a combination between tango, contemporary dance and acting.  It was humorous and fun!!!

The theatre was in Barrio Norte and although we went to the Carlos Gardel museum the day before, we completely missed the street Jean Jaures.  The street consists of tango shoe and clothing shops, the theatre for tango performances, bars playing tango music and restaurants.  We nicknamed it “the tango street”.   I suppose that is what happens when you hang out with the locals!!! The girls from Portugal was loveley and agreed to support me with arranging a milonga in Lisbon on my holiday to Ericiera in September!!!!   Life is amazing when I say yes!!!!

On our way home and while window shopping for more shoes, we discovered a more traditional Argentinian restaurant and decided to have dinner at Pollos a la Brasa.  This is no fancy restaurant and not like the steak house in San Telmo we visited earlier in the week.  This was completely the opposite, a family restaurant for the locals, but the paela was amazing!!!

The next day we went shopping again and I found my prettie shoes!!! Yes, it is purple and black again, but hey ho I like purple!!  I also found the stockings to go with the first pair of shoes I bought!!!  We will be returning to the tango street tomorrow, because there are a couple of dress shops we did not have time to visit last week!!!!  Shirley need some more red dresses!!!!

There are a lot of tourists from all over the world in Buenos Aires and a lot of them come to Tango. Meeting people is therefore easy, but they are all on their own journey, making the best of their trip.  I have been fortunate that one of those people walked up to me after a class and started a converstaion.  We had such a good connection that we went for coffee.  We discoverred that although we live in opposite parts of the world, we share a  love for the Tango that was danced in the so called Golden Age.    We also chose the same teacher and since then we have been seeing each other every day.  Attending classes, shoping together, going for a meal or going to a Milonga.  Shirley attended the ladies week in March and generously shares her experience and passion.    I shared my first Milonga experience with Shirley and what an experience!!!  I had 2 left feet that night and would have given up and go home,  but we had a good laugh and with Shirley’s encouragement I went to another milonga.  With the support and encouragement from Shirely my Tango skills and confidence are improving and Buenos Aires is so much more fun!!!   Shirley know the best places to dance and I know how to navigate through the transport system, so we make a good team.  Shirely thank you so much for sharing this amazing experience with me!!!!