Rickety Roller Coasters

Malena and I went to a Milonga last night at a local Italian restaurant. The room was more crowded than usual, although it still consisted mostly of older couples. We took a table near the dance floor. We toasted to our addiction with a glass of white, while we inconspicuously scoped out the room for potential partners, or just men closer to our age. There were a total of two competent tangueros on the floor but unfortunately they had brought their own tangobabes. Hmmm I thought.... maybe he'll grow bored eventually and seek out new flesh to cleanse his palate...kind of like lemon sorbet but definitely not as tart. The first man approached our table... hmm i recognized him, he's that guy from Sunday's outdoor milonga. Who seemed to have three steps to his dance vocabulary, and rhythm was not one of them. Phewww!.... he turns to Malena, who's never dance with him before. I gave her a look of sympathy and part relieve, as he escorted her to the floor. Being somewhat new to the scene, guess we tangueras must endure the arduous task of weeding out the men who can dance and the ones who really shouldn't. The highlight of my evening was dancing with Charlie, a feisty man in his late 60's, early 70's. I was excited he showed up because I knew a dance with him would be anything but boring. We met at a milonga two weeks ago. Thats where it happened. During the third song of our first tanda, he whispered in my ear... "just hold on." All I can remember was I was in the midst of an ocho, and a split second later I was in an upside down tango pose. He held me there for a few seconds... long enough to see the faces staring back at me. To my surprise, I was not at all angry with him. Sometimes tango is like a rollercoaster ride.... you have the slow climb that builds with anticipation...and then the inevitable climax as the musical crescendos unite your heart and your feet. Charlie is like one of those old rickety rollercoasters in Corney Island. You have an eerie feeling the car could fall apart at any moment but there's just something bizarrely thrilling about it. Lesson # 1..... "must wear shorts under skirts"

Besos,
Eva