Dancing Against the Fog

Well, now with Mama Gena out of the way - at least for the time being - I can catch you up on other events happening here in Portland (in general) and my life (in particular).

This weekend past, for example.

I'll only consider Friday evening.

There is a gazebo on the Eastern Promenade of the city, overlooking Casco Bay and its islands, Fort Allen Park, it's called. I'm not sure exactly where Fort Allen was - I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to defend against the British, so that leaves us Natives (I'm Cherokee - we were down in Georgia, it's not our fault).

In evidence - the remains of a redoubt, the bodies of some old 14 pounders, well sealed against possible use. A flagpole.

And a wonderful gazebo, site, in the day, of Chandler's Band concerts on Thursday evenings. The Chandler's Band was sponsored - some say "made up" - by the Ship's Chandler's association, the people who supplied materials for Portland's thriving (this was a century ago) shipping industry.

I remember seeing something called "the Chandler's Band" in several parades here in town when I first arrived here - whether they were actually waterfront workers or just ringers hired to play is beyond me.

Still it's a lovely thing, that gazebo, with a magical view of Fort Gorges, the near islands and the SoPo shore.

Friday, if you can't tell, was slightly cool, cloudy with fog swirling far off down the bay.

My friend Adira, belly dancer and dance teacher extraordinare served as DJ, providing a sophisticated and very danceable mix of tangos, vals and milongas.

I suppose we had around 15 people or so, in various waves and levels of interest. There was a small snack bar set up on one of the railings.

It's a rare fine thing to dance a tango in a gazebo overlooking one of the oldest working harbors in the Eastern United States. Boats go by below, some motoring quickly, leaving a rippling wake slashed across the waters. Others, sailboats pushed by straining propellers, moved more deliberately. All were headed into moorings on shore and off.

The Casco Bay Lines party boat chugged by, faint wisps of rock and roll floating up. We waved to them, they waved back. Something, they could tell, was going on at the prom but their beer goggles weren't giving them the resolution they needed.

A tango has been likened to having a three minute affair with a total stranger, it's very intimate physically and we've all mastered the fine, demanding art of experiencing such delicious closeness, contact and communication - and not losing emotional balance.

It can become a sudden challenge at the most unlikely of times, but mostly we keep our heads - and our hearts.

The party boat chugs back by - more waving, though we are all a little indistinct to each other. Fog is rolling in, the bay is vanishing in a sea of black. I like this moment, it appeals to the Gothic in me, the person who partly lives on Dartmoor and looks for demonic hounds in the mist.

The dancers are moving to keep warm now. I think our movement and breath set up a microclimate in the gazebo, keeping the worst of the chill and fog at an amiable distance.

Finally we have to stop - even on a foggy Friday night we're courting interruption by the police by going much longer than 10 p.m.

I keep hoping we get thrown off - or at least warned by Portland's finest but maybe it's for the best. When the weather is genuinely warm and the sky is clear then I'd stack dancing in the Fort Allen Gazebo with any tango in the world.

TangoMoose.7 - Moose Making Tracks

It's really a damned large city.

You can get lost in it so easily - and find yourself just as easily.

The real yourself. So many of your ways of dealing with people go out the window because there are so many people to deal with, in so many ways.

I think, like most things in life, a city that size forces you to either become a fake person or become the person you really are. Such massive anonymity - coupled with being in such close contact with a few close, good friends - led me to the latter. You're safe to be who you are.

For someone fundamentally healthy (not saying I don't have quirks, mind you ....) once you start removing all the armor protecting your true self it's very hard to put it back.

I suppose I've been moving toward the revelation for a while, it's just really really fun to actually dance to the music you've been hearing inside yourself, music you were finally working up the nerve to share.

And I have been sharing it. That's the most fun of all.

Getting back from my afternoon with dragons and apples took quite a while, a long, rather depressing walk down Fifth Avenue, chronicled in my last post.

I did get a long soak in the tub. I'm not too decadent, just a little mildewy sometimes - a good bath clears that right up.

Union Square was the destination for the evening. There is a milonga there every Sunday during the Summer. This particular Sunday was bright, very warm, a perfect New York Summer evening. It seemed the whole world was out - literally.

So many languages, shops, approaches to life. Usually the presence of strangers can overwhelm me, I sense their thoughts, feelings, I "read" them and the intensity of a being amongst many is more than I can sort out.

The result is a kind of catatonia, what a friend calls "climbing my tree". Very self-concious, me. In time I climb down and return to the human race but sometimes it's a close call.

Not this time. I could read people, generally, and not get flustered. There is nothing mystical in this, I just pick up clues like posture, voice inflection, movement, grammar, things like that - and my brain puts it together so fast I sometimes don't know what's going on except I'm reacting to people on a gut level I have no control over.

Union Square was straight East on 14th, about 8 of the longish latitudinal blocks that take you crosstown. I stopped to buy a couple of black plums inhabiting a fruit stand in an organic grocers. There was no one around to take my money as the crowd surged blithely past. Going inside I saw that the cash registers were mobbed 8 deep with people buying stuff for the week. I managed to sneak the plums into a candle display where they might be found later. Or so I hoped.

They had lots of them so I'm pretty sure I didn't damage the store's bottom line.

The milonga was in full flight as I arrived. The Sun was westering and long, low beams were filtering between the buildings. There were two levels, the bandstand and the plaza before it. Speakers push out a great mix of classic tangos, milongas and vals. It was quite a mixed, animated crowd.

I took up a space on the steps connecting them.

I really knew no one and getting dances was problematic. There is a tradition in tango called the cabaceo - the art of making eye contact before asking someone to dance. It saves embarrassment - and gives women total control of the social situation.

Eventually I was rescued by Dr. N, her daughters and their friends. Like the night before there was a lady in need of tango lessons. Adira and her gentleman friend joined us and it turned into a deliciously fun, warm evening of dance and chat.

Finally the music ended. It always does. If you're prepared for the moment you can use its energy to propel into a new adventure. Or, you can go home and have a bath.

Both were tempting propositions. I opted to go with Dr. N and a friend to the Grammercy Park Hotel, just off the side of Grammercy Park, at the end of Lexington Avenue.

The Park is one of only two private parks in the city, held in trust and owned by the dwellers in the houses that surround it. There are fairly few keys to it not owned by the trust. Six of them belong to the Hotel and now that I think of it I know where I'm going to try to stay, if only for a night. Who knows what kind of magic is in such a special, private place?

We wound up on the Terrace of the Grammercy ( after a a slightly embarrassing search for the elevator - and Dr. N had stayed there before!!). It's actually a rather dark, gloomy hotel, a great contrast to the Ikea-like decor and glass shower walls of the Standard.

Still it had spectacular views of the city.

I had a chance to talk to Dr. N and her friend, M, about relationships and the SFWA. It's all a work in progress and despite my sense of the need for more depth I was gently reminded that I was experiencing the end of at least nine months of work and discussion.

Also, I didn't have a direct connection - if I had been asked "who is your Sister/Goddess here" I'd have had to say "I don't have one". Hnmmm.... that might have actually been interesting.

So afterwards we walked down Broadway at near Midnight on a warm Summer evening, telling stories and looking at the lights. We would up back at the park, empty now, quiet now, lowering dark and low against the bright backdrop of structures behind it.

We said "goodnight" to M, who continued nonchalantly down Broadway to her digs. I walked Dr. N back down 16th to her apartment, chatting about life in the city and how you can get burned out, emotionally and financially ("financially" I could easily see...) but that the energy of so many people living - having lived - in such proximity could really give you a boost....

.... and it has. It has been observed that I have "some new moves" in my dancing. I really don't think so. All I'm doing is paying attention - to others and to myself.

I've recently helped write/transcribe a classical, complex tango for our local band - and my own writing (when I get to it) seems more fluid, more rich.

I'm in prep for a major test on music software for my job at Apple - and, despite its complexity, I'm getting it.

Sometimes certain events - or people, my late friend Eckart comes to mind - can give you an unholy whack of energy to be used to propel your life in a new direction.

Or that energy just comes from inside you, unbidden until you're ready to accept and use it.

Either way, like the roomful of energy from 240 women or a plaza full of dancers or a dragon curling on a stone plinth - you just open your mouth and breathe it in, fill yourself with it, bask in the joy of sharing, giving, taking, making, using ....

.... living.

Then you go home to Maine and try to do something with it.

TangoMoose.6 - A Divine John, A Jonesing Diva

Facebook Gallery is here.

Everyone loves an amiable dragon.

This one lives just outside the central nave door of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue. It's by the loading dock, the top of a set of uncarved stone blocks, unfinished below, this set of fantastic figures above.

Unfinished blocks are all through the Cathedral - once you get an eye for them they pop up everywhere. They are waiting for stonemasons, perhaps yet unborn, waiting to have images of saints, sinners, stories, lessons, angels and grotesques teased out.

I've had a strange connection to CCSJD since I was very young - the author of my favorite book, "A Wrinkle In Time" was the librarian there for years, though, I suspect, "librarian" meant more "writer in residence" than "bookshelf police".

No matter. The last time I was there a giant stoneyard existed on the North side of the Cathedral close, filled with giant blocks of white marble. You could buy a stone and it would be fitted into the tower, you would be given a map to show where your stone was. Very old school way to fund a project.

Old school as in "the 1100's".

I took pics (refer to the gallery above) and sat in the rich echoes of the largest gothic cathedral in the world. People who had no idea of what the symbols carved in stone meant wandered through.

I phoned my dad while sitting on a bench in the Cathedral close, watching kids play a game with bolos made of tennis balls, the point being catching the connecting string on a frame by throwing. These were little kids and their peals of joy would fill the close, echoing off the walls of the church.

There is a remarkable peace to the place, I can see being caught up in it, appreciate having the space to think through what your life was about and what you needed to accomplish in order to better be yourself.

So Sunday was given over to exploring two centers of spiritual life - one in stone, the other in glass.

Specifically the Apple Store on 5th Avenue - ordinarily under a striking glass cube, on Sunday under a stricken scaffold of wood.

The bus ride was crowded. It seemed the entire city was out enjoying the park, the streets, the food, themselves.

The store was an unbelievable madhouse of people. The store has a simple layout, the cube houses a piston-driven elevator. This is surrounded by banks of tables for demonstrating products, setup, training, workshops - just like the store I work in but arranged in a square.

I tried to take space at an unused training station to write but was quickly evicted by a Creative with a client to teach. After introductions we had a quick chat about being in the City and crowded stores - then I got the hell out of Dodge (and I've been to Dodge).

The store vomited me out into a heaving sea of people on Fifth Avenue. The stores there have always been touted as the source of haute couture - today they just seemed like granite copies of stores in Freeport, all concerned with selling the experience of something, rather than the stuff itself.

The Abercromie store had two male models at the door, having their pics taken with stricken twenty-something women, stunned to be embraced by men of a physical perfection they knew they might never touch again if they lived to be ninety. Very strange.

The afternoon ended with me returning to the Standard - Jim C. was headed out to the SFWA after party, I was going to soak in a tub (for probably the last time) and then off to tango in Union Square, the last event in a very eventful weekend.

TangoMoose.5 - Sister/Goddess in Close Embrace

Waiting for the limo to head back to Maine.

Just like every day is the same, this one feels different in the same way.

I wish I could say it better. Like Buckaroo Banzai said, "Wherever it is you go, there you are".

Perhaps it'll come during the writing.

The SFWA men's question section was very informative, a lot of direct questions about "what men want". Discretion precludes specifics (and the non-disclosure agreement was in force, as we were reminded - don't take this as unusual, in a way it was a sort of doctor-client privilege sort of thing).

But I can say that a lot of the thinking seemed a mile wide in love and respect but an inch deep in apprehension. From my point of view most all the problems discussed could be solved - or addressed - if people just really listened. It seemed so silly.

If I love someone - anyone, in any context, really - then I want them to be as much themselves as I can possibly get. If anything gets in the way of them being themselves - even me (which has happened) then the warrior in me comes out. No messes with my friends. No one.

Think of it like a glass of Nestle's Quick - I want as much chocolate in the glass as can be managed. Why would I want someone to be someone else?

So there is my solution to the world's problems - chocolate for the women, milk for the men - it all works out, no?

You walk a lot in this city. A friend of mine who spends time doing some gallery work here specifically mentioned it and it's true. At some point I'm going to do the calculations to figure out how much mileage I've put in but even so, it must be a lot.

The evening was given over to two events, long in the planning - a tango friend who is also a wonderfully personable belly dancer, EH, was performing at a benefit for a medical center for paraplegic kids - both her distinctive and engaging belly dance and a provocatively un-provocative bit of burlesque.

Some of the burlesque on the program - held in the Cellar of the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street - were so provocative as to be totally boring. Fun to watch, but a little bland. Not EH.

There was an intermission with dancing, which was fun - I got tagged by the DJ while I was reviewing pics I shot of EH. I was "the guy in the pink shirt who is texting while I'm talking" and he riffed on me. I took a page from the locals and shot him the bird, much to the humor of the room.

He kept riffing on me as the evening progressed, though I did go up and show him the pics of EH and offered to buy him a drink. Pax. What the hell.

There had been a plan in the works for some time to go the the Lafayette Grill for its Saturday Night Milonga. That got suddenly changed by half our group when we went outside, ostensibly to head for the Grill.

The new target was a milonga called "Nocturne" which is held at Dancesport on 35th Street just behind the Empire state building. Apparently it's one of those things that "everyone" goes to.

I was in the company of CN, Jim C and a couple of Goddesses from the weekend, friends of CN who wanted to learn tango - and who wanted to get out of the noise of the Chelsea Cellar.

Wound up teaching an extended beginner lesson to one of the Goddesses (THERE's a sentence I thought I'd never write - add it to the list).

I found Nocturne to be a very self-centered milonga. Everyone seemed so absorbed in showing off clever moves (I'd say a third of those present) that the line of dance, the sort of global social interaction that is part of what makes tango so much fun for me - that was gone.

Which, in such a small dance space, makes for an unpleasant dance. I disliked Nocturne, intensely.

Which is a shame as some of the dancers were great fun to watch.

That led to a cab ride back to 16th. Street and 5th. I walked CN back to the apartment - still guarded by its Russian Doorman and thence back to the Standard.

So Saturday ended with our major obligations to the SFWA and its Sister/Goddesses fulfilled.

Our airport limo will be here shortly and I suppose I'd better close off. Next up, Sunday - a divine John and a Jonesing Diva.

TangoMoose.4 - Powered by Pleasure

There are some who say the School For Womanly Arts (SFWA) is a cult. They say it is unusual, destructive to established relationships and refuses to accept any other points of view.

By these criteria the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Booster Club is a cult. Ask any football widow.

Notice there are no Scrapbooking Widowers groups for men.

I'm writing this at the Borders at Madison Square Garden across the street from the Pennsylvania Hotel. There will be a men's question/answer session in an hour with the ladies asking us questions just as the men asked yesterday evening.

I won't go too deeply into the specifics of last evening. Courtesy demands discretion. Also I signed a confidentiality/media release - no photos or videos, no statements that would identify anyone in the room. So I can refer to Jim C and CN because you already know who they are - but the identity of lady in the Nurse costume has to stay undisclosed.

They were kind enough to let me video and take pics my friend's tango that opened the show - the choreographer, also a friend, got stranded in Portland due to the same thunderstorms that forced us out of the cab and made Jim forget his shoes.

The gist of the evening was to finalize the students' study and to give the relevant males (and others) in their lives a chance to ask questions about what they had learned and how it impacted daily life.

As far as I can tell the dominant priority of the SFWA is living with pleasure. That we all have needs and the first amongst equals is the need to be heard, respected and loved - starting with how we use those verbs in reference to ourselves.

That someone with a healthy personal relationship with themselves tends toward the same with others - either by building them or seeking them out. That is an expression of pleasure.

This last, I think, is why so many patriarchal voices are raised against the SFWA because this sense of health precludes women being beaten down - and it deeply, deeply acknowledges women's natures - especially the sexual and sensuous part of their personalities.

No, no reason patriarchal voices would be raised, not at all.

And that, if you'll connect the dots, is why we signed releases before we got in the door ...

... and why this is about as specific about the evening as I'm going to get here.

I will say that Jim C. and CN performed brilliantly - oh, we did get ahold of the limo service and the shoes were returned - just in time. As the crowd broke up and the stage was just sitting there (after Jim C. and CN took posed tango pics) someone put on "Reflejo de Luna" and Jim led a lady up to the stage to dance.

Not to be outdone and noticing the sound person's assistant was following the dancing closely I asked her if she'd dance. The reply of "I don't know how" was brushed off as it deserved and she made a fair nice job of it. Then as we were leaving the stage (platform) Jim and I both got tapped and there we were again.

Afterwards Jim went back to hotel and CN, her daughters, their paramours and a couple of friends went for a very classy burger at a place called 5 Ninth. Jim went to St. John the Divine for the Solstice concert - at 4:30 a.m. and I got home and crashed out. I remember him going out but rolled over and gave it a miss.

So I've had a great tango lesson at Triangulo on 21st. Street. More on the tango angle later as that part of the trip is getting ready to begin.

Eighteen stories above me the SFWA is getting ready to meet with us - the men started it by carrying Mama Gena in to the stage then disappearing for an hour. It was a little "Queer Eye" for the moment but kind of loopy fun. I'm going back over and have no idea - in a life singularly free of directional ideas - no idea of what the hell is going to happen next.

I love it.

TangoMoose.3 - Where's My Damn Fez?

So they Hallowee'n shop was out of fez.

Fezs.

Fezzes. I think that's the one. Or plural.

Back in the Apple store on 14th. Charging the phone (done). Pictures edited and uploaded (done).

So now some quick notes and then off to Triangulo for a private tango lesson.

The Standard Hotel is anything but "standard". Its European, minimalist design is very clean, very easy to use. Jim C., after our great switch, are sharing a large bed. He talks in his sleep, in several languages, I thrash. We've done a good job of demarcating the bed so each of us gets at least a reasonable amount of sleep.

I think this hotel was designed for pairs of men that might be a bit more personally involved with each other than Jim and I.

The bed butts up against the wall of the shower, which has no doors and no curtains - the wall itself is glass, the shower has a generous tub, built for two.

I could put this to use - I did take a very luxurious bath this morning, which is rare as I don't often find tubs large enough to fit me.

So we're making it work.

There was a lot of on/off rain yesterday. When we decamped for the Mama Gena Men's night the priority was to preserve CN's hair - which, frankly, looked wonderful. We jumped out in front of the Pennsylvania Hotel, very quickly, so quickly Jim C left his shoes in the car.

So right now I'm off to walk to Trinagulo to take a private tango lesson - and I want to think more about how I'm going to share the whole Mama Gena Men's Night Experience with you.

Give me a few hours.

TangoMoose.2 - Still No Zeppelin Ride

Team TangoMoose arrived in good order... and definitely is not in Maine anymore.

I've read that you can walk off a plane and the sheer physicality of a place can hit you like a sledge - you become viscerally aware that you're in a different location.

Same here - Jim C. is most aware of it. The pressure of voices is greater - I have to shield myself more to not follow conversations (though I got good fast). The limo ride into CN's apartment also gave us proof - both the constipation of the traffic crossing the bridges and the lack of constipation of a man relieving himself (number 2, no less) right on the curb. At least both people and dogs are curbed here.

No, not in Maine.

Couldn't reach my camera - and yes, the thought did cross my mind. Sometimes untended baggage is not a bad thing.

The apartment was very spare - smaller than mine at home, actually - but cozy. Jim C. agreed to change out a couple of light fixtures in the ceiling so we went out to a local hardware store (thank you, Map App) to get the necessary.

There was a Russian Doorman - and there the intrigue started. There is a lady who lives there who is in charge of maintaining the good order of the building and she is very sensitive when rooms are "informally sublet" even for a weekend.

So we all had to pile in and out of the place so fast that the Russian Doorman couldn't tell if CN was "with" me - or Jim C. - or Both. At all costs he couldn't get the impression that Jim C. and I were "with" each other or the "good order Police" would rumble the game.

On the way I noticed a bistro, Italian - the Chelsea Ristorante. We had dinner - some of the best bolognese sauce I've had in a long time - and Jim C. returned to change the chandelier - a one-person job - and I found a Starbucks to check my email.

CN began to rethink the complexity of the plan - also the Russian Doorman would not be on duty all weekend and each entry/exit of the place was a chance for the whole wicked scheme to fall apart. Fun but risky.

So we switched. Jim C. and I are sharing a bed - a large bed - at the Standard hotel (more in the next post) and CN took the apartment. I bought a huge bouquet of flowers to brighten the place and took my camera up to the penthouse roof - the 11th floor of the building.

Technically it was open only to residents but no one seemed to be checking ID's so I got some lovely pics. Gallery is here.

The move happened at 8 - had we turned down one block earlier we might have walked right into this Apple store but we came down 13th. Noticed a barber shop and I think I'll have a shave there - the ladies are spending most of the rest of the day getting ready for this "event' (I found an iron and ironing board and set to work this morning) so it behooves me to get a decent shave.

So here I am at an Apple store in New York, getting ready to chase down a fez. I'm intensely curious to find out what's going to happen next ...

Operation TangoMoose.1

Team TangoMoose takes to the sky

Facebook Gallery is here.

Our flight left on time - Jim C, Chris and I had lot’s of time to sit in the Jetport’s Shipyard brewpub, grab lunch and chat. Our talk was wide-ranging; personalities (of course), tango, politics and old T.V shows.

The destination is LaGuardia Airport, the occasion is the Men’s Night and Graduation weekend for Mama Gena’s School of (or is it “for”?) the Womanly Arts.

It’s a pretty earthy approach to practical feminist action that concentrates on community building, self-actualization (and knowledge) and a decided focus on sensuality and recovery of a woman’s real identity and value.

I’m 100% behind this - I’m also still not quite sure how “Men’s Night” fits into all of this except to intuit (with my Native American intuition - my “male intuition” doesn’t seem to cover this) that Mama Gena wants her “Sister-Goddesses” to mix it up with males (and other significants) in the most direct way possible….

…. and in this case “direct” means Argentine Tango.

Apparently we’re going to dance as direct partners. Argentine Tango is improvised - a leader provides the general direction and the follower goes there - but in her own time and with her own style, which the leader (usually a guy) has to follow and adapt to, or he doesn’t get any dances during the course of the evening.

One of the things I love most about Tango is the direct communication you have to develop with your partner - you have to pay attention and hear how she likes to dance, where and when she likes to dance, seriously - you have to listen.

So along with other delights of travel to America’s largest urban area I’m going to go meet some new friends (hopefully friends) and listen to them.

Maybe hear myself better too.

Losses and Gains and Cats

Looked him in the eye as the sedative took effect. Kept repeating “Good kitty. You’re such a good kitty”.

We lose stuff - people, youth, friends, pets, careers, identities - all the time

I always promise at these moments that I will never take anything that I love for granted again. Never lie to myself that pets won’t get kidney disease, parents won’t have sudden heart attacks and prostate cancer. Never think that I can treat the thoughts and needs of my friends with indifference forever.

Never think that not saying what you feel is an acceptable way to live.

His eyes looked directly into mine, the way he always did when I left for work each day, looking with a cat’s certainty that I would return because “how could he not return to such a wonderful animal as me?”

I made that promise at the moments when I lost Eckart, after my mother, after leaving Litchfield after being, in effect, fired for incompetence as a teacher - promised each time, as if self-delusion was inoculation against the guilt of a job of loving badly done, inoculation against the guilt of shortcuts in action, passion, of care.

The supervising vet, at other times a very gruff, demanding person, was surprisingly kind. Perhaps my being wracked by loss and guilt made him seem gentler by comparison.

“Once he’s out the actual drug will work very fast. He won’t be suffering much longer.”

When I was a child my science teacher - the amazing Mrs. Heilmann - said that “when she was a girl” the worst thing you could say about someone was “he thinks the world owes him a living”. As if paychecks grew on trees and someone was supposed to pick them for him.

Not a great support of the Great Society, Mrs. Heilmann.

Over and over again - “you’re a good kitty. Such a good cat. I love you. I love you. Good kitty. Good kitty.” His eyes never wavered - or closed.

I stack my hope against my self-knowledge.

I hope I never think the world owes me love. I know that sometimes I take the people and things I love for granted, as if it’s something due to me just because I’m using the available oxygen.

It’s not guaranteed that we will be loved. It’s something we all need - to receive and to give. But it is not guaranteed.

Plants leave the seed knowing they must have rain, not knowing they will get it. But still they leave the seed.

So I looked into his eyes as they went dark, truly dark.

Finally now I hope that in that cat’s mind, that cat’s heart, inside that miserably sick, pain-wracked cat’s body he felt a cat’s certainty that of course he was loved because I had come home for him.

And that now I could be certain that I was loved in a cat’s own way ....

...even if he was the one who was now leaving.

Thank you to Sebastian P. Goodkitty - the late Lord High Kitty of Congress Street.

Larger Flakes.

It's black night out now - I can see large flakes of snow falling in the peach streetlights below.

Mournful fog horns.

There is a pickup truck, its running lights glowing in the snow. A large man in a heavy coat is down by the docks, he lights a cigarette, drags on it for a few moments and tosses it into the water at his feet.

I've been resting here for the past 4 days, since Friday evening. There has been a run-in with a seal, over-priced pub food, the discovery of a 'fridge full of champagne and frozen cookie dough and a fair amount of sleep and introspection.

I wish I could say I am coming out of this a transformed person - unless you think that being more yourself is something of a transformation.

I've actually not talked all that much these last few days. Went to Portsmouth with friends for a tango practica, sat with a carpenter/boat captain pal in his rebuilt sail-loft of a house, drinking coffee and talking about the challenges of a being a new tango person - "new' being anyone not born and raised in Buenos Aires.

Through the windows that face my bed I can see lights moving through darkness, around the island docks in the middle of the harbor. It's motoring toward the dock with the pickup truck. The large man tosses what must be his fourth cigarette into the water and moves to the back of the truck. Looks like rope coming out, a line or something.

I think I've stayed here long enough. I feel rested, like my zealous, over-filled soul has used the time to listen quietly, patiently, to the gently varying sound of the waves on the shore. Like the snowflakes each wave has its own sound, its own pattern.

It should probably now become part of my routine to find time to sit by the ocean, wherever I am on the coast of Maine, to sit, listen and calm my spirit, tune my ear to hear the sound each wave makes, just once and then forever gone.

Unique and irreplaceable. And then gone.

The boat is at the dock. A tall man exits the wheelhouse, waves to the man on the dock, tosses him a line. The boat is home safe.

The snow keeps falling.

Fall forward, Spring Back - Feed a cold, starve a cold

So now we've launched our 2nd Generation magical computer device. I've been so excited I've not been getting sleep - working out my nerves by writing a fairly challenging new tango.

I like this new piece. I tend to like all of my pieces, frankly - but this one really seems to say what's on my mind, the joy and the tension, the excitement and contemplation that always fight for supremacy in my spirit.

I'm taking some time off next week - I really don't think in terms of vacations and free time - ordinarily, anyway.

There's a lovely bed/breakfast overlooking Boothbay Harbour, about 45 miles north up Route One. During "The Season" it's quite a tourist haven; my digs for four nights would have cost a good bit North of $1,500 - I'm getting them for about $500, including full breakfast.

And I'm a big breakfast guy.

People at the Orchard who have worked full-time from the opening (I've been full time for just over a year) seem to take huge vacations - it was pointed out to me that 100 hours of vacation is more than two weeks, rather than just over 4 days (96+ hours or so). I just don't think that way.

So, before "The Season" starts, while stores are being painted, docks being repaired and fishermen doing actual work, I'm going to stop and just watch the tide change, probably singing "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" - or, more realistically, thinking about what I have to do to get my music to sound the way I really hear it.

If you really believe in what you do, that it can do some good, you have to act. I suppose I am, that everything I've done in my life has led to this direction, to the moment I'm sitting in now, for good or ill.

Let's see what happens, shall we?

One Fog Bank and Suddenly It’s Spring

The last 24 hours have seen the ruination of winter.

Had an isobar moved 50 miles toward the shore the rain pounding down outside would have passed through an arctic cold front and piled up as snow.

But it’s coming down as water, the air is in the forties and fog is drifting across the streets. Large drops are dissolving snowbanks that used to tower up to second-story windows.

My standards of meteorological neatness are quite high - if we can’t have lovely banks of puffy (easy to shovel) snow surrounding us then it’s just as well to have done with it.

Raindrops strike the brick sidewalk outside the glass doors beside my seat. The intensity waxes and wanes, cells are moving by above the city, the tap runs from closed to open and then back to closed.

I’m working on a new tango. It’s at a stage where I can take a step back to see how it feels as a unit. Having a foggy, rainy, slightly clammy night to stalk through helps clear my mind.

A beer and the excellent sauteéd Brussels sprouts make a difference too.

I suppose I’m ready for the season to change. Time to shed a layer of skin (going to the gym will help that too) and see what patterns I’m showing this year.

Strange Days, Stranger Nights

Taking a moment to have a drink and catch up with this blog. We were hit with what would last week have been a serious storm - tonight it's only the precursor to a really, REALLY big storm.

I'm glad to say that I've finished my first new piece since Eckart died. It's a bit of a mash up - but it works well and I rather like it. The orchestration is in the works - but it's fun.

Tomorrow - or later tonight - the REAL storm will hit and we're going to decide if we open late or not. Either way we're going to do it. I love it.

Another reminder of the loss of my friend - besides talking through my fears I would be constantly pestered about my dreams. He was a strong proponent of dream theory; his training as a logotherapist gave him all sorts of interpretive tools to help people use their dreams to delve further into the center of their selves.

So here is the dream from two nights ago.

I remember being invited to Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at the New England saltbox of a family that were friends of mine. Several musician friends were adult children of the family, the parents were my mentors in theatre and publishing music.

The "kids" had an old boat on the grounds to play in - I remember looking out the window at sunset - and at everyone having fun playing "boat". I helped set the table, opened the wine, made myself useful instead of joining my friends outside. The music from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", the Bricusse/Newley version, which is the reason I decided to commit to being a composer, was playing in the background.

I remember being polite and totally detached from the family feeling. Very typical. The Wizard of Oz was playing as well - I remember walking through Woodford's Parks back home and pretending to be in the movies as I walked through the woods and gardens, desperate to keep the magic I was feeling in my head intact so I could leave the park and deal with my life.

My guitarist friend has asked me to help him unload his truck into a downstairs entrance of a building near the old fire station (Station 5) on Boston Ave., where I learned to play pool when I was in First grade.

There was a long electric keyboard being unloaded into the back room space of a school, run by an evangelical church - my guitarist friend was part of the worship band but was something of a "four corner", hired to anchor the band. I set the piano up and crept to listen at the doors of the classrooms, at how disorganized and thoughtless their music lessons were. The rooms were dusty, barely lit.

I exited through the office, the secretaries mortified that I was there - apparently I was a known quantity - or at least my theology was.

It was a sunny Summer day, and I looked up to see all my friends, the accordion player, her sister, the bass player, the violinist, the guitarist, the mentors, all of them in a Sikorski helicopter, turning arabesques in the sky over my head.

They all clearly smiled and cheered at me, waving like they really cared.

And I remember thinking that I had to decide that either they were making fun of me or just being kind and loving. That answering that question was the most important thing in the universe - and that just knowing that decision faced me was enough to make me smile.

And THAT, my dear readers, is why I miss Eckart so much - he would be able to help me figure it out for myself. I suppose I'll have to.

How strange.

Despite the Magic Sometimes the Monsters Come Anyway

So, let's talk about Clarke's Law, little boys and the monsters that drag you away.

Clarke's Law is a law of cultural inequality and it explains a lot of history. It states that "any technology sufficiently advanced will look like magic to less-advanced observer".

This is how Cortez and Pizzaro were able to defeat civilizations outnumbering their soldiers by millions to one. If you think you're dealing with gods and magic then you've put yourself at a disadvantage that may not be recoverable.

That idea of magic is in my life today. Since losing Eckart I've prepared for the moment when his son will ask why his father smoked while in the knowledge it would hurt him - and what does that mean about how his father felt about those around him?

It will be a slightly magical answer - I won't know it, won't understand it.

It is slightly bad magic - the mystery of why he smoked (and we all have things like that in our lives - more on mine in a moment) is part of a bad magic that took him away.

It is countered by good magic - the love and connection that we all shared - still share, though our experience of Eckart is different now - is something we don't understand and can't explain.

So I call it Magic. Like all good stories there is good and bad and sometimes people can learn to harness it and use it in both ways. It's a choice. That's not magic - I hope it's not. It's a choice.

Sometimes my own bad magic takes me over. I get sudden, overwhelming panic attacks sometimes, especially when I'm dancing with friends. With strangers, no problem (mostly I'm nervous about perceived wardrobe malfunctions).

Most of the time I just accept that that's what's going on in my heart and head, I go for a walk, cry it out, sit and breathe or just stand at look at the stars and it passes.

Most of my friends understand and accept it, give me space and still love me. Some people I know try to take advantage of it - I just watch them bluster and don't expect them to be there in any real way.

And often I'd go to chat with Eckart about it. Sometimes for sympathy, mostly just to acknowledge that I'm wired that way and it's the price, I think, for my creativity.

But tonight the bad magic came. I realized, as I sat in my apartment, just up from Maine Ballroom dance, where I'd just left after a record fast 90 second appearance, I realized that he wasn't there to talk there anymore.

That's a different magic than just losing him, a real blow. It was baking a loaf of bread and having no place to set it to cool, no one to share it with.

So I took a breath and headed back to dance with my friends. Good magic.

I think I'm ready if that young boy wants to talk about his dad now. We are all mysteries in some ways - we don't know what's going on and since we don't have explanations we have to depend on magic in certain ways.

In many others we're very clear and engaged in the science of our lives.

But sometimes it all comes down to magic.

Blizzard Watch/Snow Day

Hello.

Can anyone here me?

Hello.

Oh - there you are.

... and tonight I'm at Geno's - two energetic young ladies, strippers from Portland's home-grown burlesque scene; J.R. himself, on the phone giving out booking info to a band from Boston; myself, getting out of the apartment to see the effects of the storm on my beloved little town.

And it is quite a storm. I awoke this morning and got to the Orchard in good order only to have it shut down at Noon. Since then I've been relaxing and chilling out (strangely) - should be writing music but just too scattered.

That's been the pattern. If you've been following me on Facebook you know that my best friend Eckart passed away suddenly of a heart attack just before Thanksgiving.

Since then I feel I've been off balance in some ways, more connected in others.

It feels like I'm in some kind of artistic limbo, it's become very hard to see any one particular project to completion, at least projects that don't have specific deadlines.

At the same time my enjoyment of my work in the Orchard has gotten more and more intense. I really like working there.

I'm part of a community - actually part of several communities.

Work has friends, new ones and old ones, people I've seen and worked with every day for almost two and a half years. I've never known a group of people this well before, it's very strange. I know personal things, professional things, have given and taken correction and comment and not let my natural feelings of immediate threat take me over.

My connections to the tango community have grown - well, as much as I ever manage to grow in a social group. I still don't get invited to parties and still can wander off into my own deep, almost autistic place when watching dancers. It freaks people out but it's worth it to experience such deep joy in listening, writing and dancing.

And my relationships with Eckart's family have grown.

I have people to talk to and, more importantly, people to listen to.

If all this was just watching what went along and not communicating in two directions then it would be unbearable.

I suppose I need to sit down and apply myself to get music written - I also need to think about where all of it is going, because I know what I'm writing is going in some direction - but what that direction is is totally a mystery.

I like mysteries and am OK with not knowing the final outcome of the things I do.

You get a present.

Is it more fun to look at the pretty wrapping, run the taste of anticipation over your tongue over and over?

Do you like seizing the box, shaking it, pulling the ribbons, ripping the paper?

Is it more about looking at the gift, trying it on?

Or do you get off on writing the thank-you notes?

Or do you do all of then?