My last stop before heading home to California was the Tucson Tango Festival. It was a wonderful event. The dancering, dj’s, were great. The hosts, Rusty and Joanne, could not have been more gracious and welcoming to everyone, and there were some unexpected surprises.

I met and saw Momo Smitt perform tango hip-hop. Check out his song:Welcome to The Tango World

As well, I was given a great bag for carrying my tango shoes by Totally Tango.

As a birthday present to myself, I bought a new pair of Comme Il Faut shoes.

Now I’m headed to El Paso to see my brothers, sisters-in-law and nine nieces and nephews to celebrate my birthday. I bought sparklers at a roadside fireworks stand, and they’ve promised a pinata for a birthday pachanga. Then I’m flying back to my little Shang-ri-la in Northern California.

Tonight at 7 PM I will be at Antigone Books in Tucson Arizona for a book discussion, dance demo, and refreshments.Private Dance Lessons to be Raffled Off!!!

ANTIGONE BOOKS
411 N. 4TH AVE.
TUCSON, AZ 85705
Ph: 520-792-3715

Afterward, I’m headed over to the Tucson Tango Festival.

Last night, fellow tanguera and journalist Emily Crawford was invited to talk with me about tango, love, and finding harmony and balance in a chaotic world. It was a really fun way to do a book presentation, and the new relocated  Collected Works Bookstore, on the historic plaza in Santa Fe, is just gorgeous. After the talk, Matt Cohen stepped up to the plate and danced tango demonstrations with both of us.

Last night the tango dancers literally “Cut a Rug” as they braved a carpeted floor for the tango and milonga demonstration at Bookworks, a great Indie bookstore in Albuquerque.

Karen Reck and Paul Akmajian demonstrate a bookstore tango.

Paul speeds it up a little here with Leslie Jones dancing a milonga.

Tonight at Bookworks, Karen Reck and Paul Akamjian will be performing a tango, despite the shelves of books and carpeted floors in this excellent independent bookstore, these two are Albuquerque’s tango ambassadors par none. They dance, teach, and promote tango. As well, Paul is a much sought after tango DJ and will be showing his stuff at the Tucson Tango Festival this coming weekend.

To learn more about them, visit Downtown Tango.

After the book presentation, we are going to have a glass of Malbec next door at the Flying Star, and then we are off to the milonga organized by the Tango Club of Albuquerque at Lloyd Shaw Dance Center, 5506 Coal SE(Located two blocks south of Central; 2nd block east of San Mateo)

We met in tango. You were the first person I really danced with. I didn‘t even know how to do a cross, which – among other things – I learned from and with you. But the real secret of tango could not be told, but had to be experienced: Two steps, one to the side, one to the other, were my first real tango steps, were I felt a connection to you and the music.

We both were far away from our homecountries, and we found a home in our embrace. But I was only a visitor at this place, where you had already spent years. And I had a boyfriend waiting for me to come back. Still, we fell in love and lived this love for two beautiful months. A weekend-trip to buy tangoshoes was one of many happy experiences.

It was painful to go back to my life without you. We said goodbye in your homecity, and then again in mine. I realize now that one cannot force oneself to forget strong feelings. My body refused to comply with the plans of my reason. I‘m still learning how our experience changed my life…Meanwhile I keep dancing.
Claudia

I anxiously await the burst that will surely stain my face with salt, but maybe tears can run out. My body feels numb to anything other than this seething fury. I am determined to release this anger, but where can it go? It will be a box under your bed no matter where you sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see nothing but what I imagine happened that night. You a) unzipped her pants b) kissed her neck c) grabbed her breasts d) you know the rest. I have wasted enough on you, my heart, dignity, sleep, love, virginity. Now I can rise up. We were two kids pretending to fit the wrong puzzle pieces, the ones we hoped would make the picture in the end.
I will try and remember the days that seem so long ago, the days I know years can’t erase. But by then they will be buried, with dust or whatever fades recollections beneath the layers of my future. I feel the salty streams flow from my blurry eyes. About time. I don’t like this feeling, but I guess it’s better. In time I will have so much love someone will need it.

Brittany

When you are 21, you spend your time looking for the one being that can fill the gaping hole in your gut. It’s the pitch black void that you had been filling with the lame shit of your youth, but it’s not until you come of age, that you realize it can be temporarily filled with the presence of another. I met David in Santa Cruz that year. He was a 42 year old professor from the East Coast, who spent his time cycling, drinking, and writing his memoirs in Boston. When I met him, he wore a Vietnam memorial bracelet; It wasn’t until we watched Harold and Maude that I realized it’s objective was to conceal the wrist scars from his last attempt. I spent the next 3 years seeking the words that would communicate how beautiful life was….Tibetan monks, Vatican priests, and poets all gave me their suggestions and I relayed them faithfully.

I had never spoken to his roommate Trina, but I knew I never wanted to hear her voice. It was 5:38 a.m, August 26th, 1991, when she finally called.

“Is this Allen?” came her rasp, “This is Trina”.

And that was it….it was simply and utterly over.

Allen

“Yo se de tu Tristeza” and “Viejo Amor”…

These were the titles on two pieces of sheet music from the 20’s that I picked up in San Telmo.

I came back inspired to dance. Little did I know that these seemingly innocuous words were to foreshadow events in my own life.

I met Henry while taking tango classes with a friend. He was the instructor…smooth on his feet.

At times we could become one while dancing. My thoughts suspended as I glided. I moved, feeling only with my heart and his gentle touch.

We became a couple. We talked of marriage, children, buying a house.

But I could never let up my guard completely when we were off of the dance floor.

You see, Henry was smooth with words, too. He could dance around the truth.

Henry is now indeed an “old love”. As my greatest teacher so far, he taught me that “knowing MY sadness” is a path to knowing my joy.

The tango is calling me again.

Carla

The First Step To Tangoing Away A Broken Heart

By David Steinberg
Journal Staff Writer

“Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home” by Maria Finn
Algonquin, $13.95, 223 pp.
Maria Finn met her Cuban ex-husband through salsa dancing. They married, and after 18 months their marriage fizzled.

Tango dancing helped her get over the emotional distress.

Finn’s new book is about their withering relationship and how tango — the accentuated moves in the dancing, the boiling passion of the music — helped her find a new life as a single woman.

She and her then-husband had planned to attend a friend’s wedding in Uruguay and then visit Argentina. Separated from him, Finn decided to attend the wedding with girlfriends.
Before she left, Finn checked out tango dancing.

“I felt terrible at that time. I didn’t know how bad you feel about the breakup. … It affected me physically. I couldn’t digest food,” she recalled.

“I was thinking about tango lessons, but the first time was when a friend showed me the tango embrace. You’re chest-to-chest. You feel the other person’s heartbeat. You feel all the good intentions of the heart. The music was so perfect.

“Tango is all about innocence lost and heartbreak. I knew I needed it. It was the only time I didn’t feel bad,” Finn added.

In researching the tango for her book, she said she learned that chemicals such as seratonin and endorphins are stimulated when you dance. That seemed to be part of her healing.

“To be dancing and feel this pleasure and happiness from it is wonderful,” Finn said. “But it also gives you space to feel sorrow and loss. We don’t often have that space in our society.”
Another benefit was that tango introduced her to a new community, which meant new friends and a new hobby.
There’s a section in the book where she had visited friends in Albuquerque with whom she went two-step dancing. The friends are Matt Cohen, Larry Bob Phillips and Marisa Thompson.

Interestingly, Finn has found joy, again, in salsa dancing. She goes once a week … of course, without her ex-husband.
• • •
Here is more information related to Finn and the book:
The author’s Web site is www.mariafinn.com.
Finn has created a “Heartbreak Competition” at http://tangomehome.com/heartbreak- competition/. And see an author video at http://tangomehome.com/videos/.
Maria Finn discusses “Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW. A tango demonstration is planned. Finn is at Collected Works, 202 Galisteo, Santa Fe at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 4.