[00:01.83]Dancing All the Dances As Long As I Can
[00:06.86]I believe in dancing.
[00:10.52]I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart,
[00:15.11]the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind. So I dance daily.
[00:21.02]The seldom-used dining room of my house is now an often-used ballroom
[00:25.72]—an open space with a hardwood floor, stereo, and a disco ball.
[00:30.75]The CD-changer has six discs at the ready:
[00:33.81]waltz, swing, country, rock-and-roll, salsa, and tango.
[00:39.17]Each morning when I walk through the house on the way to make coffee,
[00:42.89] I turn on the music, hit the "shuffle" button, and it's Dance Time!
[00:47.70]I dance alone to whatever is playing.
[00:50.44] It's a form of existential aerobics, a moving meditation.
[00:54.81]Tango is a recent enthusiasm. It's a complex and difficult dance,
[00:59.62] so I'm up to three lessons a week, three nights out dancing,
[01:03.34]and I'm off to Buenos Aires for three months of immersion in tango culture.
[01:07.83]The first time I went tango dancing I was too intimidated to get out on the floor.
[01:12.86]I remembered another time I had stayed on the sidelines,
[01:16.50] when the dancing began after a village wedding on the Greek island of Crete.
[01:20.44] The fancy footwork confused me.
[01:22.86]"Don't make a fool of yourself," I thought. "Just watch."
[01:27.02]Reading my mind, an older woman dropped out of the dance,
[01:30.74]sat down beside me, and said,
[01:32.93] "If you join the dancing, you will feel foolish.
[01:35.66] If you do not, you will also feel foolish. So, why not dance?"
[01:40.58]And, she said she had a secret for me.
[01:43.43]She whispered, "If you do not dance, we will know you are a fool.
[01:47.80] But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying."
[01:51.19]Recalling her wise words, I took up the challenge of tango.
[01:55.89]A friend asked me if my tango-mania wasn't a little ambitious.
[02:00.05] "Tango? At your age? You must be out of your mind!"
[02:04.10]On the contrary: It's a deeply pondered decision.
[02:07.93]My passion for tango disguises a fearfulness.
[02:11.64] I fear the shrinking of life that goes with aging.
[02:15.03] I fear the boredom that comes with not learning and not taking chances.
[02:19.52]I fear the dying that goes on inside you
[02:22.80]when you leave the game of life to wait in the final checkout line.
[02:26.74]I seek the sharp, scary pleasure that comes from beginning something new—
[02:31.87]that calls on all my resources and challenges my mind,
[02:35.60] my body, and my spirit, all at once.
[02:38.88]My goal now is to dance all the dances as long as I can,
[02:42.70] and then to sit down contented after the last elegant tango some sweet night
[02:47.84]and pass on because there wasn't another dance left in me.
[02:51.23]So, when people say, "Tango? At your age? Have lost your mind?"
[02:56.48]I answer, "No, and I don't intend to."
|