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.