Tango Butterflies – Part I

I was so proud of her. I told everyone the story…

We were dancing tango.  Friends, in the chocolate shop.  Brick walls and art.  The place smelled like heaven.

Red velvet cushions and on one a timid girl slumped in layers. Heavy winter boots. Fingerless gloves.  Something made me want to put life into her.  We shared hot chocolate and I told her about tango, about my own fairytale.

So the story, it is really good.

Her doctor sent her, she told me.  Tired of silly exercises for her weak back, her doctor sent her dancing.  Tango was the only one she loved, she told me.  And well, fancy that me too.

I made it my mission to crack her,  Out of that tough skin and cold exterior.  I saw a beautiful soul and I wanted everyone else to see it too.  She kept coming back and I gave her my secrets. All my secrets.

Little by little the gloves came off, the pants, the sweaters.  Kicking and screaming she let me paint her face.  “I look like a French whore,” she told me, but I saw her eyes smile, and two weeks later she’d put on her own.  Lipstick and skin, even heels.

I showed her how to use her feet and hold her body. How to look pretty.  Choosing fluttery things to fly. Posture. Presence. A little caterpillar, wiggling her way in to wings.

I was in love and I wanted to share.  In love with my boyfriend, in love with my life, in love with tango, learning to love myself, and all that love just overflowed.  Onto everyone, but lots onto her.  And she loved it.  Starved, she soaked it up, and grew.  Blossomed and I nurtured her.

Time passed and life changed, but we only got closer.  True support it was.  Mutual.  Easy.  Without motive, just to share.  With my little tango buttterfly.

My fairytale wobbled here and there a little – so did hers.  Then mine came crashing down.  Prince Charming wasn’t so charming anymore and I felt to move forward, solo.  I left, released her, told her she was ready, pushed her, saying, “Fly little butterfly, fly!”

And wet wings flopped in hot sun then dried. Stronger, brighter, big like mine.

I packed up all my life into two suitcase and landed in Spain.  Something new in every corner. Open to every possibility, I soaked it all in. I flew. I shone. ‘Smiled til I couldn’t anymore.  Then I watched, sober, the people, the music…thinking, processing…

From afar I saw my butterfly. Taking ideas we shared, making them real. I applauded with my words her journey.  So proud, so thrilled to plant a seed and see it grow. To see the fruit luscious, ‘harvest shared with all.

Butterflies, we both were born…. to make the world a happier, more beautiful place.

autumn cornucopia risotto

red onions browned in butter

thick homemade chicken stock

toasted rice and olive oil

thyme, sea salt, peppercorns and wine

sweet dried cranberries

carmelized butternut

shitake, beet greens and kale

creamy garlic roasted in its skin

fresh spinach, avocado and lemon

mesclun, pinenuts and goat cheese

 

 

 

i am gypsy

my reflection in the metro window is this: slicked back hair, heavy eyebrows, pink lips, long earrings, and unlikely layers of silky slit pants, tall suede boots and an ancient sweater coat with wooden buttons.

in my lap, a red leather backpack, purchased at madrid´s open-air market for short flights around europe…and for traveling by motorcycle.

i carry handmade tango clothes, glittery silver stilletos, one joint prepared for sharing, a monthly unlimited metro pass, the bright yellow calico change purse i made at home during my bonus days before spain, an en-cas snack for later… and most prized my little leather notebook, growing ragged and fat with foreign words, stories and scribbles.

i don´t know what the next day will bring, where i will sleep for the weekend or what i will eat. i have no money. i rely on circumstance and opportunity. i walk everywhere. i take constant notes of thoughts, words, ideas, places.

i am gypsy and journalist. i am hippie and hobo and colorful bundled butterfly.

❤

cuerpo

The scale, which I don’t see much, says I’ve gained 3 kilos- 6 lbs almost, but I don’t know… I almost like it.

My legs are growing strong from all the walking and all the stairs.  I see muscles in my thighs that I’ve missed. My belly is softer, and that I don’t love so much.  I feel like I am losing core definition because I’m dancing less tango, using less obliques.  Salsa uses different muscles, lower, but I miss my defined and flat tummy.

Of course there are the boobs.  They’ve filled out the empty skin; they’re rounder, firmer and I can’t say I mind.  My strapless tops stay up now and in the shower I am happier with what I see.  I feel feminine and curvier and soft.

 My body is content with appearance but craving to stretch.  I think in a past life I (or in this one) I must have been a cat.  I *do* need to stretch, to purr, to be touched.

I am touched.  And every nerve in my body sings.  My mind does not want to surrender so to him but all my senses are overwhelmed.  I am powerless surging honey when his lips touch mine.  My body rises to his hands like a magnet to their warmth.  And I feel.  So alive…

…Like flying.  My body feels the same when I’m flying-overtaken, moving mindlessly in the music like a musician, fingers abandoned to the instrument with no need for thoughts. 

In Spanish, they don’t say one plays an instrument.  The word is “tocar,” to touch.  I’ve reflected on this many times.  I like this.  To touch, because an instrument begs–like a body–to be touched.  And if one has the skills the instrument (or body) sings to life, breathes into life, and the soul swells.

 Yoga makes my body sing.  Deep in the muscles, creating heat and fluidity, power.  Today I visited a store that inspired me to yoga even more.  Rituals it was called, all scents of tangerine and vanilla and musk and rose.  Made me want to stretch in socks at home.  Tonight perhaps.  A few sun salutations before heading out to tango…

In afterthought, only one other thing makes my muscles melt too… you know…. just a little… ‘takes the tension of the day out of my body. ‘Helps me relax and slow down and enjoy life and moments, thoughts and movements.  It helps me flow….I can’t help it: I love it…

cigarillos

I’ll never forget the first time I saw someone roll a cigarette.

My friend Wendi had died. In her sleep, at the age of 27, leaving two beautiful babies behind. Eden and August she’d named them. She was a free spirited hippie with wild hair and loose bohemian clothes. Wendi loved freely, life, her children, me…

Her funeral was the first time I’d let myself cry in a long time. I found myself shaking with huge sobs stunned by the suddenness of it. Her boyfriend held me and we cried together. I’ll never forget it.

Outside of the funeral home people were smoking. A slim, pale girl dressed all in black sat on a bench, back straight. Long fingers rolling a cigarette with papers pulled from an enamel box. An elegant picture of melancholy. Ever since I’ve wanted to learn.

Here in Spain I don’t smoke much, but some times I do…and always. It is a rolled cigarette. A long cigarette that burns slow. 5 long minutes spent with friends, or in silence… relaxing… remembering…

metro

The thing about having a car is that at times it can be so… isolating, that long commute all alone. Or so I would often feel at times in my suburban hometown preparing for the daily 30 minute drive into work.

It has always been my dream to live in a city where I had no need for a car, and here I am. In Madrid. Where the commute becomes forty instead of thirty. And I am living my dream.

“España is a place where people have many acquaintances but no friends,” I was told. My observations however, lead to a much different conclusion. Either the statement is incorrect, or I just happen to be luckily surrounded by this jolly selection of people that defy the norm.

It is a Saturday night around 11pm and the metro is simply a joyous place to be. People fill the cars, happily interacting with each other, within their cluster and outside of it. Every person is smiling, or at least looking pleasant.

A sensory explosion, that is the metro at night. Like in NYC, I hear different languages: Spanish, French, Russian, German, English. All generations are represented. There are young couples with children, family bonding at the end of the day. The old people are dressed smartly: adorable in to much fur, fresh shoepolish and expensive cologne.

Groups of ¨joven¨ (young people) are talking and laughing together, arms full and feet surrounded by giant bags overflowing with ice, liquor and soft drinks. They’re on their way to ¨botellion,” the fabulous public drinking and socializing that fills Spanish plazas every night. There’s a law against it, unanimously ignored.

A punk boy smooths his long, straight black hair checking his reflection indiscreetly and constantly in the window. He´s buff and sculpted like a gothic Greek god and wears a belt of bullets, pouty mouth accessorized with a heavy steel lip ring.
Next to me there is a middle-aged woman carefully made up, dressed head-to-toe in bright yellow and black. Across the aisle, a pretty brown-eyed blonde with a starched 50´s bob, matte red lipstick and vintage clothes in shades of blue. A shaggy youth in holey jeans rolls a spliff, and upon request cheerfully donates a hefty pinch of the organic tobacco to a glossy-haired girl on his left.

I love this time. I can choose: to listen, to observe, to participate. To write, to read, to do homework… In the metro, the people come together, and you can choose across the spectrum who you are. This hour. This mood.

Tonight the feeling is of celebration: the whole bubbling jostle of humanity, together. Out on the town. But even on a weekday morning, zoned out in my own little world there is still that sense… of human solidarity, community. Unless it a van, a full one, you just don´t get it traveling by car.

It’s the same feeling I would have as a child curled up on the couch with a book unphased, while little brothers and sisters around me created all sorts of noises and disasters. A tornado all around me, but I didn´t care. I was simply in my world. A joyous one. My space and others’. Shared.

🙂

on dancing

I’m dancing a lot more here than in Buffalo. A lot of salsa, bachata, kizomba… and yes, tango, but I need more. I love all of them, but there is some need that tango fills that no other dance can touch.

A few weeks ago I had an incredible experience that I’ll never forget. I was at La Covacha, my favorite milonga here, at the very end of the night. Omar had just arrived to see me dance tango for the first time; ‘I was happy he was there. Only a handful of the best were left, I’d had only good dances all night and Vito was playing great music. Inspired and full of good energy, I threw off my shoes and asked Luis (my adopted hermanito) to follow me. There were very few moments where we faltered, we were solid, abandoned to the music. Big steps, little steps, turns, sacadas, even boleos. At the end of the tanda I felt flushed, ecstatic, victorious. After barely a breath Lomuto’s “Quiero Verte Una Mas Vez” came on, and I needed to dance, no time for shoes. I met the eyes of Claudio, a young Argentine… ‘all but ran to him. And we flew. On that empty floor we made magic like I’ve never felt before. From dirty bare toes to the top of my spine I felt strong and liquid all at once, like honey, or butter. I didn’t feel my feet touching the floor, only my heart and breath fused to the man giving me so much music…taking mine… carrying me so effortlessly within OUR music.

I was high for an hour after that tanda. Flying on the feeling. Salsa can’t do this. Only tango.

I do fly in salsa too. More and more; I feel m body growing stronger, flexible in different areas. I am learning different techniques to connect- not tango, but very complementary I think. I don’t move like most of the girls in salsa. My tango training keeps my frame more erect than it should be, but on the other hand my awareness of axis is better than most. I really connect to my partner, make him dance with me and with the music. If he doesn’t hear the music I use my body to transmit it to him. Just like tango. Salsa keeps me smiling, especially as I am able to do more and more.

But tango…yeah… nothing else compares. I will be at La Covacha again in 15 minutes. I am hoping for another experience like this one…And in two weeks? Paris. Where I hear everyone falls in love…and the tango isn’t to shabby either. 🙂

cucumber salad

Gifts Cucumber Salad

Mix well in strainer then drain for 20 mins:

-3 thinly sliced English cucumbers
-1/2 small onion thinly sliced
-2 cloves garlic, minced (not crushed)
-1 small thumb fresh ginger grated
-1 1/2 T kosher salt.

Meanwhile combine in large bowl:

-1/2 c fresh herbs, minced (basil, cilantro and parsley)
-1 1/4 c. whole milk yogurt
-1 T. dijon mustard
-dash tamari
-fresh ground black pepper

Squeeze liquid from cucumber mixture and rinse well with cold water. Add cucumbers to dressing and enjoy!

live. in the kitchen

an hour in the kitchen and i have…

-a huge pot of borshcht with beef-bone stock made last night

-a fresh chickpea tabouli with lemon herbs and feta

-a few quarts of apricot-elderflower pancake compote

Oh yummy. I think my appetite is tempted back. 🙂

*thank you Mom and Anna for never-ending nutrition inspiration!*

soft sounds of ‘killing me softly’ coming through open windows at 1am <3

Beautiful things have been happening to me all weekend. I’ve wanted to share it with someone! I found so much time to live. I went slow, I met girlfriends for coffee and lunch, I went for walks. I sewed a pair of shorts (that I think Anna and Rose think are ugly…hehe) and the plack and white pants in the shots. I cooked a little and did laundry and vacuumed and did dishes. Went for walks: to Delaware Park for Shakespeare and once to just lie in the sun and listen to tango and copy lyrics into my little book… (great way to study Spanish!) I drank a lot of coffee and ate small meals and slept in. It was so indulgent feeling the whole weekend…. It’s so sad that all this is because of Travis and I not living together. My time is my own and though it’s horrible to say, I feel like a burden is lifted and I am lighter not living in fear of the next time things will go bad between us. It’s sad because I think he is wonderful and amazing and fully capable of so many great things….I just can’t give this any more tries; I don’t even want to try again. I’ve lost hope, disconnected from that part of my life and am joyfully moving on. I hope he will be okay. He really misses me now that I’m gone…