Finding the Perfect Dream House

I have an acquaintance who just bought a new house. He's a smart, successful, shrewd guy, and there's no way that he's going to buy a house that is any bit less of a reflection of his smart successful shrewdness - so he made his agent show him about seventy different houses over the course of one month. None of them made the grade - too narrow, too wide; too old, too new; too much landscaping, too little; the location is no good, it's too expensive, the decor is outdated, the layout is too weird, the investment potential isn't good enough, the seller smells strange etc., etc., etc. It's a wonder that the agent didn't kill him.

Finally he settled on his "dream house" and made his offer - but now that his offer was accepted he hasn't had a day of peace. He's been calling his lawyer about three times a hour freaking out about the inspection, the survey, whether there's going to be some misrepresentation by the sellers, would he be cheated when it comes to the assumption of the utilities and adjustment of property taxes etc. etc.

Because god forbid that he made the wrong choice and that he wasn't as smart and as shrewd as he thought he was. It hasn't even occurred to him how absurd it is for him to buy a huge house with five bathrooms and a four car garage when only two people are going to live there. And they aren't the type to waste any money on household help.

I have another acquaintance who bought a little two-bedroom condo next to a hydro field. It's not close to all the shops and restaurants, it's way out in the suburbs, and the view - well, there's the hydro field, there's the road, and there's quite a bit of industrial area. The unit's not even going to appreciate that much.

He shrugs when you point out all the defects. "It's my slice of heaven," he says. "It's a place I can call HOME".

Guy #1 doesn't really need as much house as he bought. But he's under the thrall of a very powerful psychological force - the need NOT TO LOOK LIKE A LOSER. He needs something to show to his friends and family how much of a winner he is and how perfect his choice - do you think that all those house tours he is going to conduct and the house-warming barbeques he's going to throw are for his own benefit? How soon the novelty will wear off when reality settles in.

Just as a "Dream House" is not the equivalent of a "Dream Home" - great pedigree, fancy technique, elegant walks and impressive resume does not "Tango" make.

Man Yung has been telling me for years that I need to learn how to "Lose". It's hard to deprogram - my upbringing has instilled in me a very strong urge to be perfect and to succeed. They told me: Winning is everything, without it, your family would disown you and your friends would stop calling.

What a huge burden it is - to exhibit flawless technique, to follow perfectly, to never commit a milonga or cultural faux pas, to always choose to dance to the best music and with the best partner to build our Tango credentials. To be top five rather than bottom five. To be a Winner and never a Loser.

But tonight, thinking about what Man Yung has always told me about learning to "Lose" and the story of "Mr. Dream House", I think I have finally realized something. Tango is not about being perfect, and it is not about being a winner. Our dancing is not about him being better than me, or me being better than him, or us being better than anyone else, or even caring what other people think. If we make mistakes, or we dance like a couple of goofs - or even a couple of losers, it's ok because it's honest. It's an old cliche - "Dance like no-one is watching" - but how many people really know how to do that?

I dance with Man Yung, and he dances with me, because the Tango is in him, and the Tango is in me. To really dance Tango - we don't need to aspire to some kind of Tango Dream House. The most important thing is to have a space where we can laugh, live, play, be honest with each other, share our secrets, joys and sufferings, be each other's consolation, and above all - Love - "Be it ever so humble", there's no place like our Tango Home.

Milonga Paranormale

We came across this intriguing announcement in the local Tango resource on Sunday afternoon:

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Outdoor Milonga-all of September There is an outdoor Milonga at the Aurora Town Park Bandshell every Sunday evening from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm (or later), until the end of September. The Milonga is free of charge and everyone is welcome. The floor is concrete and easy to dance on. The Town Park is 2 blocks east of Yonge St. and 1 block south of Wellington St. in Aurora, Ontario. The bandshell provides shelter in a light rain only, and the Milonga will be cancelled if there's heavy rain or thunderstorms. Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Address: Aurora Park Bandshell Wells St. ,Aurora Email: auroramilonga@bell.net

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An outdoor milonga in the 905 area! Well, it sounds like an adventure and something we should check out - especially since it seems to be organized by "anonymous" and we were just dying to know who that could be!

We break out the handy GPS and headed out for the heart of Aurora, that leafy suburb of the suburb of the suburbs (now being gradually taken over by McMansions, big box retailers and gigantic Wal-Mart Superstores).

On the highway, we noticed that the sun was setting pretty darn fast - by 7:15 p.m. this far north of the equator on this clear cool day, it was already getting dark out. "That's kind of funny," said Man Yung. "Who would want to hold an outdoor milonga in the dark?"

After some hair-raising twists and turns down Wellington Street (those brand new street signs are hard to see!) and down some side streets, we finally reach "Aurora Town Park" at 7:45 p.m.

It's not a big park. Standing on one edge of the park, you can see the other edge. But boy, was it dark. Lucky the weather was too cold for the bats to be swooping around - although we did see one or two shadowy people taking their shadowy dogs out for a walk.

Yummy...."Spectral light" issuing forth from the trees at Aurora Town Park

"I don't hear any music," said Man Yung. And indeed, neither did I. We did hear some muffled cackling and guffawing from the innards of the secretive houses crouching at the edges of the park. But no music.

Groping our way through the dark, we arrived at last to the Bandshell... only to find it apparently completely deserted, and so dark you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. Where were the milonga revelers?

"Come out, come out, wherever you are...."
a.k.a "It's sure going to be difficult doing the cabeceo here"

"It's only 7:45! I thought the milonga was supposed to be from 7:00 to 9:00!" exclaimed Man Yung.

We decided to walk around the park - perhaps the milonga wasn't in this bandshell but in another "bandshell" somewhere else on the property? Well, we only came across a kiddie park (deserted), a baseball diamond (deserted), a glowing locked building that probably housed the toilets (or perhaps even the gates of HELL), and an empty ancient armory, rumoured to be the site of sadistic torture in the Golden Age of Tango - for dancers who dared to violate the line of dance (just kidding).

Toilet? Or the GATES OF HELL?

"Fine then," said Man Yung as we returned back to the deserted bandshell. "We can have our own milonga." We set up our mp3 player and gingerly put it on a ledge in a spot that didn't have any gum (or was it ectoplasm!!?) on it. And we danced the entirety of one (1) tango. The shiny concrete floor was not too bad for pivoting even in our street shoes.

It was only marginally fun. "Let's get out of here," I said. Maybe it's just me, but there's something about going to a pre-announced outdoor milonga and finding that not even the organizer has turned up that kind of puts a damper on the mood for dancing.

"If someone is going to organize a milonga, they should really make a commitment to be there from the start to the end - just in case some people show up," said Man Yung.

I remember this kind of thing happened to us once before when we went to the St. Lawrence Market outdoor milonga (the organizer thought no-one would show because of the drizzle and went shopping in the market). That time we spent the entire afternoon stuck in Toronto waiting for one of the evening milongas to start. This time we had to drive for more than an hour to get back downtown. And we never found out who was the organizer.

Or perhaps we were mistaken? We took these two photos of the empty bandshell within seconds of each other. We didn't notice anything odd until we got home and took a look at the photos. If you look closely, it looks like something.... was moving.... right there on the stage.....

Now you see it...

...Now you DON'T!!!!

We should just quit with our bellyaching - maybe the milonga was going on ........ and we just couldn't see it!

SPOOKY!

Regrets

In our tango journey, we've had terrific opportunities that we did not miss (like taking all 52 hours of classes that Martha and Manolo held in Toronto), and "Whew! Close-call" lucky breaks that we took advantage of (like not being fooled into choosing the nice young gentleman who dances badly in sneakers as our first Tango teacher).

But in Tango, as in Life, there are some things we cannot help but regret.

Tangocommuter just unearthed and posted a newly discovered video of Ricardo Vidort here (But IMHO, the best example of his best dancing on the web is here). What a great dancer, but now he is gone. Now all we have are snippets of footage and the memories of those who knew him.

Most people miss the opportunity to learn from the greats of the older generation by not traveling to Buenos Aires, or by traveling to Buenos Aires and just taking classes for three weeks with either people with trophies, or people who claim to have learned from the greats and have big long resumes to show for it.

We missed the opportunity to learn from Ricardo Vidort when he was RIGHT HERE IN TORONTO.

Ricardo was in Toronto for the first Toronto International Tango Festival, must be at least four or five years ago. We saw Ricardo demonstrating in the opening night milonga, and also at Club Milonga, and we saw him hang around a few of the local milongas after the festival.

We knew he was giving some classes and some "talks" about the culture of the milongas. But somehow he failed to capture our interest - and indeed, the interest of a lot of other Toronto Tango folk. We didn't understand the concept of milonguero or close-embrace (except that it seemed kind of boring and stuffy), there was no Youtube to educate - and any tango that didn't have at least one or both persons flying in the air was kind of lame to us (and to most of Toronto Tango), so... well, Ricardo fell under our radar. He just didn't register.

In fact, Man Yung knew Ricardo was watching us while we happily and obliviously danced our "Tango Estilo del Centro" in the Toronto milongas. Yes, even in those days we were kind of different and stood out.

It wasn't until years later, when we finally knew who Ricardo was, that Man Yung told me.

"You know, when Ricardo Vidort was in Toronto, he once tried to get my attention while I was on the way to the washroom? He stopped me, and started demonstrating some steps. He seemed friendly. I thought he was just showing off or having a lark. But I didn't speak Spanish so there wasn't any point trying to communicate. So I just smiled and went on my way."

"What do you think he meant?" I asked.

"Now that I have gotten to know some of the older dancers and have some insight on how they think, I understand. Something I was doing on the dance floor reminded him of the way that the older generation danced, but I was probably doing it wrong. He saw potential in me and wanted to correct me, and teach me what was right. But I had no idea. I missed my chance to learn from him and I feel ashamed to think of it."

It was a missed opportunity, but who knows. Given our level of dancing and understanding, our lack of knowledge of Spanish at that time - no, even when I replay the scenario over again in my head, it wouldn't have worked. It may have been the right person, but it was the wrong time. And if we became Ricardo's students, would our history with Martha and Manolo, Alberto, Osvaldo and Coca be the same?

Missing our chance to learn from Ricardo Vidort, from Pedro Vujovich, from Pupi....these are the regrets we have to live with.... But at least we know our regrets. At least we can learn from that.

How many out there don't know enough to KNOW to regret what they have missed?