danceislove

I exit my apartment, keys and metro ticket in hand, wearing a strapless black shift, no bra.  I have, however, remembered to put on fancy underwear and the blown-out flower-embroidered Sketchers that I have worn practically every day since I bought them in April 2008.

Deep grooves puddle the dirty, dark wood stairs.  I like the lack of elevator.  Extra calorie burn for me, especially when hauling bags of groceries from the Maxi Dia two doors down, like I did earlier today.

“Your friend went back to America?” my roommate Claudia asked me, as I turned from putting two bags of veggies in the freezer.

“Lyndsay?  Oh, no.  She lives in Spain.”

“Ah!  Oh, she does!  Really!  But you know her from the States.  From Boston.”

“Yes,” I confirmed.  “That must have been confusing since we are both American, and she was visiting me!”  I make sure to give Claudia a wide smile before I put my jar of tomato sauce and extra carton of soymilk on the bottom of the wooden shelves standing next to the refrigerator.

“Is she in Spain permanently?”

“I don’t know.  You could ask her.”  I take a deep, deep breath and smile.  “I mean, she is online sometimes, so you could ask her if you wanted to know.  Now she’s on a lavender farm.  She’s going to different farms to learn about organic farming.”

“Are you going to visit her too?”

“Maybe. There’s a lot I have to do in Madrid.”  Again I look at Claudia and smile.  Questions like these cause me great and unreasonable distress.  Others’ search for linearity, reciprocity, and definitiveness concerning my life, and concerning the lives of my friends, incites within me a level of exasperation that renders me nearly helpless.  I know that people ask these questions because they are genuinely interested in my life.  Unfortunately, this does nothing to mitigate the distress, even though I want nothing more than for people to be interested in my life.  The only way in which I have managed to grow in dealing with this experience is to smile as if my life depended on it, to explain things patiently, and to acknowledge that appearances to the contrary, situations can be confusing.

My least favorite question is why I chose to live in Madrid.  Actually, I’ll answer it now but it would not make sense to most people.  I live in Madrid because of an amazing woman that I met two weeks after my arrival, and because of a dance partner that I didn’t dance with until about the same time.

At a party celebrating the conclusion of the English teaching course I took in June, one of my colleagues asked, “Hey Liz, how come you didn’t move to Paris?  I’m sure the lindy hop is much better there.”

I stood up suddenly.  “Oh,” I stammered, “oh my gosh - am I in the wrong place?  Excuse me, I think I’m supposed to be in Paris!”  I grabbed my purse and turned and started to walk out the door.  Everyone laughed, loudly and appreciatively.  I was happy with that response.  I need to come up with more of those.

Claudia, the roommate who was asking me questions in the kitchen, is someone I am particularly grateful to have met.  Despite her youth, she gets more done than most people I know, studying hard for a double-master’s in international management and finance.  I live with her and with two other equally glorious gals because I blindly answered an online ad.  Claudia, who was raised in Bordeaux, is tri-lingual and goes running with me most mornings at 6AM.  What are the chances I would have found her if I’d tried?

“You should ask her about wines,” said my friend Morgan the other night.

“I don’t want to ask her about wines,” I answered, “because everyone asks her about wines once they find out she’s from Bordeaux.  Anyway, she already told me once while we were running that she doesn’t like wine.”

“Ah.  Then don’t ask her about wines,” Morgan said, his voice full of warmth.

I like Morgan a lot, because he has fascinating things to say about physics and calculus and dancing and novels.  And he listens.

“Don’t worry about the how,” I told Lyndsay as we sat in the bus station lunch counter yesterday, eating horrible mayonnaise and vegetable sandwiches and patatas bravas that nevertheless tasted good to us because because we were eating for the first time since our fruit and bread the evening before.  “Just put out to the universe what you truly want.  If you wonder about the how too much, you might compromise.”

Lyndsay and I spent hours and hours talking during her visit.  We walked all over the La Latina district, giggled over cute boys, pored over books in English bookstores, bought each other fruit and metro passes, drank wine at outdoor tables.  I never once asked her how long she plans to stay in Spain, although we discussed different ideas she had on that topic.  I like it when people discuss with me the things that are foremost in their minds and hearts.  Then I have the opportunity to understand them in their complexities, as opposed to their reducibles.  I like it when people do the same for me.

Some people think that “putting something out to the universe” is a cop-out for not making things happen.  I left a whole life in the States to follow my heart.  In a way it was the path of least resistance because it was the thing I most wanted to do.  A lot of people say I am brave, but it doesn’t feel like bravery.  Once I have an idea of what I want to do, I can’t rest until I make it happen. And then usually I can’t rest after that, either.  The result may not be what I expected and things may not be easy per se, but I don’t want easy.  I want to move forward.  Just like in air steps.  Let go.  Look up.

Speaking of which, I have a dance partner.  His name is Raul.  Among other things, he is the best spotter I have ever worked with.  Somehow, when another one of the boys is throwing me, practicing a step, Raul can get right in there with his hands around my waist without interfering with the momentum and without getting himself kicked in the head.  Yesterday he and I practiced the knickerbocker for the first time - that’s a backflip for the girl - and we threw it with no problem.

Tuesday night I didn’t have practice, though, which worked out fine because I could go out with Lyndsay.  Over our salad and fruit and bread, she told me about a fight she’d had with a dear old friend.  When things had reached an emotional pitch, she stepped outside, took a breath and asked her God to help her know what to do. She re-entered the room and just listened to her friend.  “She said a lot of hurtful things, but I just stayed there with her.  Then I said, ‘Okay, I listened to you; now listen to what I have to say.’  She did listen to me.  Now we’re friends again.”

Yesterday was not so easy.  I stood on the metro, traveling from English class to dance practice.  I felt tired, and, okay now, raise your hand if you’ve ever had a broken heart.  Well, I do, and sometimes it hurts so much I’m astonished.  I thought of Lyndsay and did something I never do.  I thought of praying.  However, I don’t think of myself as having a God.  So I just closed my eyes and talked to the universe at large, in my head.  I know I’m not supposed to be sad like this.  Just give me a sign to help me get through.

I started counting the things I’m grateful for.  I have a fantastic dance partner, and dance colleagues that practice four times per week and essentially do anything I want them to.  I have August ahead of me, in which I will have hardly any work but enough money, and the time to do exactly what I want to do, not beholden to anyone - school, boss, family, husband - so I will do what I have always loved: read, play, write, dance, sing, be with the wonderful people I know.

I guess the universe didn’t give me a sign, but maybe I missed it because my eyes were closed.  Fortunately the gratitude made me feel so good.

Maybe, just maybe…we would all do well to focus less on sense and order, and more on joy and gratitude, and the things we truly want more than anything.  I don’t know.  Just a thought, from the little dancer you know, tucked away in a crumbling building in Madrid, next to the tango and flamenco bar that makes great quiches.

Nevertheless, walking home from errands, I can understand why people leave Madrid for the beach in August.  The sun stings, sears, fatigues me.  Still, I hope this late-morning swing through the city burned my shoulders a bit and got rid of the white strap marks on my upper chest.

“Do you want to go down for a caña?  Oh, it’s so hot,” Willow says.

“Yes, but I can’t stay long.  I must sleep,” I reply.

“Let me just sweep this up first, because I may not do it later.”

________________________________________
“The universe rewards people who follow their dreams,” Willow says, smiling at me.  “A few years ago, here in Madrid, I was working this horrible job.”  I know she is shifting into story mode, and I anticipate delight.  “I worked from seven in the morning till 10 at night, with a few hours off for lunch.  I was commuting 25 hours a week.  The pay was horrible.  I didn’t have time to look for a new job, because I was exhausted, and I was always working.  But I went in to see my boss and I gave notice.  I gave a very respectful three weeks’ notice.  She insisted on three months, but I’m really glad I didn’t do that because then it would have been Easter, and no work.  She really tried to manipulate me.  I wouldn’t let her.  She was a smart woman, and could make people do what they didn’t want to do, but I wouldn’t let her get to me.  I quit, and a few days later the jobs just started coming, and I was making more money than before, working far fewer hours, a much better situation.”

“Can I have a sip of your wine?” I ask.  I have only ordered sparkling water, because I am so sleepy as it is.

“Of course,” she says.

It tastes dark like chocolate, and crimson like roses.  “Is this their regular house wine?” I ask.

“It’s this one.” She points to the listing on a the bi-folded plastic-encased drink menu.  Ribera.  2.50 euros.  “I don’t actually like it very much,” she adds.

It is after 10 on a Wednesday night, so the bar begins to fill up.  Willow and I pause in our conversation each time a striking young woman in a colorful caftan walks by.

“Did you see the shoes?” she asks me.

“Yeah.  Silver.  I like them.  They’re like wedge shoes without the middle part of the wedge.  Do you want the last sip of wine?”

I accept gratefully.  Soon we are out on the cobblestones again, hugging.  “I love you muchly,” Willow says sweetly.  “I don’t know you well yet, but I will, and I will still love you muchly.”

“And it is still so wonderful that you are in the world,” I smile, as we disengage.

“Where do you live?”  She asks.

“Right there.”  I point, about 10 meters away, to the very next door toward Calle Toledo.

“So close!” she says happily.

We bid our final goodbye until Friday.
________________________________________________________
“Sing another song in French, boys,” I sigh, leaning back on Willow’s little couch, which is strewn with sparkly cushions.  Nicolas has Willow’s standard guitar.  He and Morgan, and occasionally Jeff, begin singing another apparently funny song.  This one, according to Morgan’s translation afterwards, is about someone who stole a loaf of bread telling people that they should punish him by cutting off his limbs.

“I guess I don’t find it funny,” I shrug.  “I like the song ‘Chain Gang’ better.”

“The Pretenders?” asks Willow.

“No, I’m thinking of an old black song,” I say, and begin to sing it.  Everyone watches me and listens.  Usually in America we don’t do this.  We are too busy apologizing for not being able to sing, or if someone else starts to sing then we ask her if she can sing something we know instead.  “Nina Simone does this great version,” I add, after the verse.

Willow has made a delicious dinner of chicken, pasta with spinach, and mushrooms in a glorious sauce.  When we sat down, Willow poured the wine into six glasses which got handed around to each of us without a question. I proposed a toast to our wonderful hostess.  Everyone agreed and then spent an unexpected length of time ensuring that each of us had clinked each other person’s glass.

“Eyes! Eyes!” Morgan cried at me.

“Huh?”

“You have to look at my eyes.”

“Oh.”  I smiled.  “Okay.”  I clinked his glass and looked at his eyes.

“Otherwise it’s very bad luck,” Willow explained.

“Seven years of-” Jeff began.

“Seven years of bad sex,” provided Nicolas.

“That explains my marriage,” I said.

I spend till 3am at Willow’s.  I sing. I listen to Morgan explain math and physics.  I go out on one of the terraces and watch the partying crowds ebb and flow down Calle Cava Baja, a little like Landsdowne Street in Boston but happier, more international, and open much much later. After Willow plays and sings “Zombie” by the Cranberries I duck back into her studio and join her in “Linger” while Nicolas plays fills on her little guitar.  Then I drink more wine while Nicolas and Willow play and sing.  I dance around her cool stone floor and glance into her beautiful round, recently-hung mirror.  I tell Nicolas the chords to “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis and we all do a rollicking version.  I watch Willow drowse on the couch next to her Spanish friend Laura.

Willow calls her neighbor to come over so there will be more Spanish-speaking people. Nevertheless she is good enough to translate for him my apparently interesting synopsis of a scene from the 1994 movie When A Man Loves a Woman.  Her neighbor, Renato, is from Portugal, tan and dark-haired with an eyebrow piercing.

Then I’m discussing physics with Morgan again: its relationship to dance partnering and Aikido, a pursuit with which he has experience.

When I decide to leave, only Laura and Jeff have gone, but I’m tired and it’s time.  Thankfully there is such a short distance to my place.

“Hola.”  Just across from Artebar stand two young Spanish men, drinking beer out on the street.

“Hola.  Lo siento, no hablo español,” I explain.  Especially not when I am this tired.

“Oh, English?” one of them says haltingly.  “Where are you from?”

“Boston.”

“What are you doing here?”

“A lot of things,” I sigh.  I’m too tired to discuss it.  I don’t want to just talk about the English teacher part.  Madrid is crawling with us.

But they are happy and drunk, and keep asking me questions.  Despite myself I am finding them charming.  “I have to go.  I have dance practice in the morning,” I say.

“Oh, flamenco!”  One of them starts clapping.  The other one takes my hand and begins leading me in some turns.  Now I’m enchanted.

“I dance something you probably don’t know,” I tell them.

“What, salsa? Merengue? Bachata? Tango?”

“Lindy hop.”

“What?”

“You know swing, rock and roll?”

They do.

“Lindy hop is more intense.  It has acrobatics.”

“Acrobatico!” the boys whoop.

“Well, it was nice to meet you.”  I hold out my hand.

“No, no, no.  You are in Spain!  Two kisses,” I am admonished.

I kiss their sweaty stubble.  “What are your names?”

“Alex.”

“Carlos.”

“Well, goodnight.”

It was a typical Sunday morning at Serendipity Central, post cross-season.  Violet stood at her round glass kitchen table, halfway between making oatmeal and booting up her laptop.  Alexander was already hunched over his own, the brand-new silver Macbook Pro he always packed away so lovingly, smoothing out the microsuede keyboard protector, latching the device shut and slipping it into its protective sleeve.  Now, however, he was probably watching some cycle racing on the screen, or checking the value of the dollar against the euro, or updating his facebook status.

My own computer was not in the kitchen because I had already copied the recipe for blueberry scones onto paper, or more accurately, cardstock:  the back of an old Blues Cafe flier.  Today’s attempt at scones was my third.

“I don’t know which ones are the best,” I said, hovering with Violet’s silicone spatula over the baking sheets I had placed on the counter.

“Come on, it doesn’t matter.  They’re all good,” Violet said.

I plunged the spatula vertically into one of the larger scones, splitting it in half, inhaling its sweet scent.

“Here, Daisy.”  (Violet and I call each other ‘Daisy’ after the controversial 90’s rap song “Daisy Dukes.”  This term of affection we use for each other is also a play on Violet’s own name.)

I held out a plate to Violet with half of the scone.  I would eat the other half, although both of us had sworn off sugar and white flour.  The scones were for Alexander’s benefit alone.  I placed a smaller one on a saucer and wordlessly slid it onto the table near his elbow.  Alexander eats and drinks only a little at a time, except for when he is wolfing chocolate chip cookies.  About a week prior to this morning I had finally found a good way to serve him tea:  in a small hand-thrown vessel intended for syrup or ketchup or other condiment.  Violet had made the tiny cup herself years ago.  To Alexander I have joked that I would start giving him tea in a thimble.

Now he glanced at the scone and said, “Thanks,” warmly, and resumed typing.

Violet, who had not yet sat down, was saying, “Oh my god, Daisy,” and rolling her eyes heavenward.  “These are the BEST scones I have ever had.  Alexander,” she said, “Aren’t these the best scones you have ever had?”

“Don’t answer that,” I broke in quickly.  I turned my eyes back to Violet and explained, “According to Alexander, the Sherman cafe makes the best scones.”

“Well, fuck him!” Violet harumphed.

Alexander and I both responded, “Already did that,” because, as I mentioned, it was a typical Sunday morning at Serendipity Central, post cross-season.

This is just one of my latest journal entries. I wanted to share it with all of you.

Anti-confusion note: On a different blog I have written about someone named Alex (many of you in the dance scene know to whom I’m referring).  This is NOT the same Alex as the person about whom I write in this post.

May 14/ 15  2009
When I hugged Will Dailey after the show, he collapsed lightly into me so that his forehead briefly met my shoulder.  His black shirt and vest were soaked with sweat.

“Are you ok?” I smiled, when he’d stood up again.  “I know that takes a lot of energy.”

Will and the band had encored with “Laugh It Off” and “Down The Drain,” probably my two favorites, though it is so hard to say.  They really rocked those two out.

“Hey,” I continued, “would it be super-Velveeta if I asked you to autograph the set list?”

“No,” answered Will.

I gave him my light blue mini-pen and the set list I had nabbed from the stage.

Will returned the paper and said, “Listen, before you leave I want to give you a bunch of my little CDs to take to Spain, so you can hand them out and say, ‘Hey, listen to this American guy.’”

“Definitely,” I said.

“And tell Daisy I’m really sorry she couldn’t make it.” He hugged me again.

“Okay,” I said.

It would be a while before any of us departed, though. I reached the bar as Cormack was getting started on another round.  “What would you like?” Cormack nodded in my direction.

“Umm…. diet Coke and Johnny Walker Black.”

“Good choice.”  He bought my drink.  We clicked.  Ricardo came over and the three of us clicked.

“Cormack, how’s your music been going?” I asked.

“I’ve been playing a lot lately.  One, two gigs a week.  I’m really enjoying it.  Great stuff happening right now,” he said.  Cormack works for MatLab in Natick during the day so two gigs per week playing bass sounds like a lot indeed.

Somehow we got to talking about my blog and realized that he and Ricardo would make it into the first book.  I asked them what names they wanted.

Both men answered in short order.  First Ricardo, with: “Ricardo.”

Then Cormack: “Cormack.”

“You got it,” I said.

“Ricardo Montaban,” Ricardo amended, smiling over his beer at Cormack.

“I think that one’s already taken.  How about Inigo Montoye?” I suggested.

Ricardo began quoting quite impressively from The Princess Bride.  “I saw it in 1989!” he crowed.

“I saw it in 1988.  In the theater,” I bragged.

Cormack started typing into his phone, its bright blue light illuminating his chin.

“Cormack, stop texting your girlfriend!” I cried.  I looked at Ricardo.  “OK, ready? Unison eye-roll!”

“What are you telling her?” Ricardo asked.

“Just wishing her well on her exam tomorrow.”

“But she’s brilliant,” Ricardo pointed out.

“Yes, she’s brilliant.  She’ll do well,” Cormack murmured, his deep voice cutting through the bar’s medium-volume canned salsa.

“How old is she?” Ricardo asked.

Cormack cast his eyes downward.

Ricardo looked at me. “She looks about fourteen.”

“Yes, she looks very young,” Cormack said.

“It’s not nice to ask about ladies’ ages,” I chided Ricardo.

“She’s in her thirties,” Cormack capitulated.

“In her thirties?! Does that mean, like, thirty?” Ricardo exclaimed.  “Is she thirty-one or thirty-nine?”

Cormack just smiled quietly.

“She also weighs as much as a fourteen-year-old person,” Ricardo continued.

“That would be good for air steps, if she ever wanted to do that,” I said right away, hoping to change the subject. Then I noticed the guy with the raven beard and wide innocent blue eyes standing a few feet to my right, hollered hello and gave him a hug.  “Hey guys, this is Leo.  Leo, this is Cormack, and this is Ricardo, otherwise known as Inigo.”

We all discussed Will’s show for a while before Leo, in his soft-spoken way, said he was out.

“Getting on your motorcycle?” I asked.

“Yup.” He grinned and took his leave of us.

“He’s one of my students,” I explained to the other guys.  “One of my newer ones.  He’s also a new fan of Will’s.  He came to the latest house concert.”

“Yeah, I was sad I couldn’t make that one,” Cormack said.  I was in New York with Ling.  We went for her birthday.”

“Oh, that sounds so nice,” I crooned.

“When’s her birthday?” Ricardo asked.

“May 1st,” said Cormack.

Ricardo had crossed his ankle over his knee while sitting on the bar stool and I reached over and tapped his shin with my fingers.  “Hey, I heard you have a girlfriend!”

“Yeah, yeah, I do.”  Ricardo nodded vigorously.

“You met her in Mexico or something like that?”

“Mexico City.  It was crazy.” He laughed brightly.  “We were on a gig.  She was involved with someone else.”

“And you stole her heart!”

“Well, it wasn’t really working out.  See, she had been with this one guy.  He was on this gig too; he was in the band. They had broken up because he didn’t want to have kids and she did.  But then he changed his mind.” Ricardo held up his hands to make quotes in the air.  “You don’t change your mind about that!”

I shrugged.

“Anyway, so they were maybe getting back together.  But in the meantime, she was dating the bandleader of this band!”

“Oh my goodness.  She sounds like a hot ticket.”

“She is.  Well, she was married, and then she got divorced, so she was dating a lot of different guys, that’s what you do when you get out of a marriage, right?”

I smiled inwardly and shrugged.  That was what I had tried to do, Ricardo himself having been the first.

“So this one day while we were on the gig, we went for a 10-mile run.  She’s also a runner.  And she just told me everything.  She’s a talker, you know.  And then two weeks after that we got together.”

“So are you guys inseparable, like Cormack and his gal?”

“Yeah,” Ricardo admitted.  “We’re together pretty much every day.  She would be here tonight except she’s been sick.  I mean, she’s better - she went to work today and everything, but she still needs to rest.  She edits children’s books.”

My eyes widened in fascination and I expressed my approval.  Then I added, “Relationships are so interesting.”

“They’re crazy,” Ricardo laughed.

“Mine’s crazy,” I said.

“You know, my father said something really wise once.”

“He did?” said Cormack.

“Yeah.  My father’s a nut job!  But he had this one wise moment where he said something like, ‘You can be in love and that’s great, but the relationship is only going to work if you are in the same place and want the same things.’”

“What are place and things?” I wondered.

“You know, whether you want kids, what kind of place you want to live in, whether you’re ready for commitment, things like that,” Ricardo explained patiently.

All at once I recalled several different conversations with Alexander: both of us describing the perfect loft while walking Sharma to Union Square one morning; me telling him I might consider having a child with him someday; listening to him describe the beauty of his sister’s place in New Hampshire and then saying, “But I could never live there; it’s in the suburbs.”

To Ricardo and Cormack, I cried, “But love makes you change, doesn’t it?

They were quick to agree with me, but they missed my point, which was, might falling in love with someone inspire a person to alter place and things being referred to?  And if so, would that person still be the same person, still be authentic?

“My guy and I, we have a different kind of connection from what you guys have with your gals,” I said to Cormack and Ricardo.  “I don’t know if it’s going to work out or not, but if it does we might wind up having the kind of relationship where we’re in the same place for a while, then we go off and do our own thing for a while, but consistently come back together.”

“That seems like it would work for you,” Ricardo approved.  “You’re a very independent person.”

“Maybe that’s true.  I don’t often think of myself that way.  But Alexander needs his space.  Sometimes have trouble with that.  At first I really miss him, but then I realize that space is good for me too.”

Cormack looked at me.  “He seems like a great guy.”

I remembered that Cormack must have met Alexander at one of the house concerts.  “He is really great,” I sighed.  “Both of us are big flirts.  So, for example, this past weekend was a dance-event weekend. It was fun for me to flirt with a lot of guys, because -”

“Because now you know you still got it!” cried Ricardo.

I smiled in gratitude.  “Well, yes, that’s true,” I giggled.  “So that I know if Alexander ignores me too much he might lose me.  But also - I always realize that I don’t like any of these guys anywhere nearly as much as Alexander.”

In fact, in these very moments I remembered why I’d liked Ricardo, why I’d stood in almost this very spot at Great Scott ten months ago almost to the day and let him flirt with me, why I was unnerved when six weeks later he stopped calling.  Ricardo is much more engaged in the moment than the average numb person I talk to; he is considerably like Alexander in level of expression, in ability to pay attention and bring something to the conversational table.  His expressive face is just darling.  However, I do not have much chemistry with him.  When I say hello to him he shoots his left arm up for a hug in a way that is a little jarring.  For me, he doesn’t smolder; there is no intrigue.  Sometimes his high level of energy registers as a white wall under a too-bright light, showing everything, and at the same time nothing interesting.  In this moment, though, I liked him considerably and remembered why I’d considered him. I reflected upon the differences among dynamics between people.  How can it be so easy to flirt with someone with whom I have no sexual chemistry?  Or is there just a little of that chemistry?  Are flirtation and sex different stops along the same continuum, or are they different kinds of energy?