As time goes by

I remember my childhood years when time seemed to be endless and we tried to do everything that made us feel good at all times. As I grew up, I began to learn to delay some gratification hoping for a bigger reward. There was a time when I gave up a pick up game of soccer with my pals because keeping my clothes clean may land me a trip to the mall with mother. Without knowing I had begun to structure my time. Time like space is indeed endless, but each of us gets just a limited amount.

I believe that the human need for establishing structures is born out of the need for recognition that perhaps we all learned to yearn for when we got the first embrace from our parental figures. We structure time, hopefully looking for the alternative that produces the best reward. I believe, that in my case, that is why I was drawn into tango, first as a listener and later as a dancer. Having grown up in the cradle of tango, it didn’t take long for me to identify the conflicting feelings that the music was carving deep inside me. I, like many other have gone through some of the transactions that involve human relations, isolation, rituals, activities, pastimes, games, and intimacy.

I have been present in body but not in thought whenever there were no strokes coming my way. I participated in socially programmed activities designed to be with people without really getting close to anybody. I had my share of activities, business meetings, lawn mowing, radio programming, where there was no need or time to associate with anybody. I found ways to pass the time, just to get to know somebody better, or until it was time to go to sleep, or to alleviate guilt and despair. I even participated in games where the outcome broke up relationships, caused misery, possibly because of an underlying belief of inadequacy, or who the hell knows. So, you may say I have lived.

One day I found the tango, or it found me. Like everybody else I went through the time structuring stages until I felt it for the first time. Then, it happened again, and I began to to look forward to the reward that the tango has for those who are willing to love it and respect it. One of the many rewards of the tango experience is the possibility of reaching various of intimacy between the two persons who embrace and walk around the floor to the beat of the music. The intimacy we are referring to, requires that both partners believe in themselves and accept each other on equal terms. In the intimacy of a tango dance, to give and to share are expressions of joy. They exist beyond the need of programmed social rituals. Intimacy becomes possible in a situation where the absence of fear makes full perception, where beauty can be seen separated from the utilitarian, where the possessiveness is unnecessary because of the reality of possession itself.

To accept the intimacy of the tango, it is necessary to mature emotionally so we can allow the free reappearance of our creative, spontaneous, curious, conscious and fearless self. This is the hardest part, because it requires the elimination of the many forms of emotional scars from our formative years where we were exposed to the civilizing tutoring of our parental figures. This initial process was necessary to eliminate aggressive and antisocial behavior, but it also suppressed happiness and creativity. Walking the proverbial dance floor of life towards that embellishing process of intimacy requires that we be let to be free, free of being conscious of our existence, and free to listen, feel, and see for ourselves.