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.
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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.