Tango: A Guide to Living

               In Tango there are no mistakes. This is something you must learn in order to move on to other levels of proficiency. To dance tango is an ATTEMPT by two people to choreograph movement to a song SPONTANEOUSLY. Turbulence is to be expected.

               This is also how we should live our lives, without fear of failure, making our decisions on how to proceed by listening to the rhythm of the universe and moving to it however we feel is best.

               Tango teaches us that we are one half of a couple in a crowd and that how we move within the group affects the mood of all who surround us.

               So it is in life: how we interact with the people we meet contributes to the general feeling of the population.

               The fundamentals of tango are front, back, side, pivot, in-place and pause. If tango is a metaphor for living, then there must also be some elemental rules for conducting ourselves as we travel through our lifetimes, however long or short they may be.

               I don’t understand fully just what the basic movements of life are, even at fifty-four years of age. Maybe they are to move towards sustenance and away from danger; to move with the others around us.

               I do know that there is a compelling force within us all to stay alive and this must be a clue to our existence.

               As I move I must not get too carried away with the music. When I do this on the dance floor it always ends badly. To do this in life, to shy away from the fight I can win only to end up in the jaws of the lion, to bet it all on black, to leap without looking, is a sure way to crash, burn or die.

               Life is not fair. Even the event of our conception is a struggle for survival among the sperm; the egg awaiting the victorious swimmer is, hopefully, just one of many that made the descent into the insemination chamber each month.

               From the vaginal dismount the newborn cries for breath and cranes its neck to find a nipple and nourishment. It is fragile and at risk every moment it is alive, yet, surprisingly, many survive.

               Tango is a healing force. For those of us who manage to stay alive in the Grand Milonga of Life, no matter how battered we are by the forces of mother nature and the violence of mankind, the universe will work to heal us as long as we can draw another breath.

               Some people might read this and surmise that I have a pretty dismal view of our existence. To them I would say that I disagree. I believe in a loving God and a nurturing Universe because I have found love and nourishment: physical, emotional and spiritual.

                I believe there is a reason why we exist because I seek one. I know that I am alive because I struggle to stay so.

               From what I’ve read, life is difficult for all of us (Plato) and that it is important not to judge others (Jesus). It is this kind of thinking that makes me believe that life and tango are one and the same.

               I cannot say with certainty that anything I do is correct or incorrect, only that it is incumbent upon me to do something. If I make the attempt to the best of my ability, regardless of the outcome, I will have succeeded because life is a tango.


For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.