Tango

I best remember an old Lit Theory Prof of mine, Dr. Jamieson of California State University, Sacramento, not for enlightening me about Derrida or Nietzche, getting me confused about the Frankfurt school or vaguely aware of Adorno, but for dancing at my wedding. Okay, obviously he was instrumental in my neophyte interest in, and understanding of, the different schools of Lit Theory, and indeed ran a theory study group on Sundays, but it was probably more the way he ran his intellectual and personal life together at the seams that most impressed me. He e-mailed last week about Connor's arrival. He also gave some news of himself – he's reading Proust again, plowed through some political commentaries, was learning the Argentine Tango with his lovely wife, Leticia, who is currently teaching at UC Berkeley.

The Tango. It even sounds sexy. As a dance form, it's very open –
Argentinians go to Tango like some folks go to coffee. Absolute strangers can meet and, one leading and the other following, with a repertoire of myriad varying steps, turn a café into a ballroom. When Dan and I married, the only thing (okay not the only thing, but the primary thing) I wanted was to Tango. I didn't really think about it much then, I just thought it caught the spirit of our relationship well.

The thing about Tango, that which makes it devastatingly sexy, is not the hands on the small of the back, the kicks and flares and arches of feet or back, but the tension between the two dancers. It's a mix of seduction and resistance, of desire and derision, of push and pull and of long, languorous, sinuous stretches and sharp snap of knee and head. It's so hot it's almost corny unless done right. Movie versions abound: Sean Connery and Kim Bassinger in "Never Say Never Again"(1983), Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez in "Shall we Dance"(2004), and Antonio Banderas and Madonna in "Evita"(1996). Banderas shows his chops again in "Take the Lead"(2006), as a teacher who teaches his kids this deliciously tactile dance as their way out of . . . what? Poverty and powerlessness? I haven't seen it yet, but I'll tell you Dan and I did tango at our wedding. His sister got us lessons and we'd ride the subway every Tuesday into midtown Manhattan at 5:30 and in the ratty, tattered, sun-drenched summer evening at the dance studio take lessons from a short yet timelessly beautiful Argentinian woman named Marta.

We learned a lot about ourselves that summer. We found out that Dan is very good at it, unless very drunk, and I am very bad. The problem is that I insist on leading. Marta scolded me repeatedly. Indeed at the moment of truth at our wedding, Dan whispered in my ear "you're leading!" "Yes, but it's working so go with it!" I laughed back. We'd meant to choreograph and we'd meant to rehearse, but tango, like talking with a good friend or walking with a lover, has to be a conversation and since we hadn't prepared this talk, we had to make it up as we went.

That's been our marriage in so many ways, making it up as we go, mixing the traditional and startling together to make something new and fantastic. There's definitely been tension. We started as political opposites. He drank coffee and I drank tea till later when I got hooked on cheap New York street coffee and he drank organic green tea from China town. We could never walk together well down the streets of New York – there were too many people and I'd feel too impeded by oncoming foot traffic or controlled by Dan's hold on my hand. We walk together better now, time and experience letting us read each other's body language better, and learning who to let lead when. And we still Tango, late at night in the Hummingbird when Jeff or Vic puts Cordero on the Ipod like we still burn the midnight down talking like methed-up kids or old women with good gossip. Only now we have a third voice in the conversation. Connor is a child of few words, but emphatic delivery. He's changed our tango into a salsa, a three-count form, with one for Dan, one for me, and one for baby who makes three. It's still hot, its still lively, but busier. It doesn't take itself so seriously and relaxes more, is okay with being caught up in the messier joys of life and less about stretching. It has less to prove and doesn't care as much about who's looking, just that dancing is good for the living and good for the soul and understands that the three-beat is an excellent way to stay on the floor late into the night.