3621  Randy Does Rio, Part 4

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:15:32 -0700
From: randy cook <randycook95476@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Randy Does Rio, Part 4

Worse Than Stupid: My Merda Moment

No matter how great a trip I am having, I always reach
a point where everything turns into "merda" (mud, so
to speak). Ten days of tango in Rio and I know my
Merda Moment is overdue. Anxiously, I look for signs.

I find them in Cafe Xango during the Friday night
milonga. I am sitting at a little round table sipping
agua mineral com gas and watching the Brazilian tango
dancers take a samba break. Samba gafieira is a
partner dance that shares tango's sexiness and
intimacy, but not its melancholy. Gafieira has a
playful, rubbery bounce to it that brings laughter and
delight. And the music is as smooth as the white
sands of Ipanema.

But I am not in a good mood. I haven't been able to
dance with any of the women I wanted to tonight. Too
much competition. And now I see Tuliana dancing samba
with a young man who thinks he is really hot stuff.
Actually, he IS hot stuff, but unfortunately he knows
it. A sort of Brazilian Elvis Presley. Nevertheless,
he and Tuliana make an exuberant, eye-catching pair.
I feel their joy the way one feels the heat off an
incandescent bulb, as something external that I do not
share. I feel a knot of apprehension in my stomach.

Randy, I ask myself, you aren't jealous, are you?

Now I hear people talking at the other tables. I
suddenly notice that they are speaking a foreign
language. Like samba gafieira, Portuguese has a
beautiful, soft sussurance, like a lover's whisper.
But I can't understand a word of it unless it is
spoken slowly and directly to my face. The knot in my
stomach tightens.

On better days, I have listened with joy to Brazilians
speaking Portuguese to each other. And I have loved
watched them dancing samba, thinking how lucky I am to
be visiting in this country south of the equator where
the water goes down the sink in a backwards spiral and
the moon's phases are in reverse, and life is
different in a thousand little ways that startle me
with their freshness and remind what a miracle it is
to be alive.

But now, in what I realize is my Merda Moment, I feel
not so much like a fellow human from another latitude,
but like a creature from outer space. I find myself
asking, "What are you doing here? What are you trying
to prove?"

This is much worse than feeling stupid.

The tango music resumes. After the soft sussurance of
samba, it sounds stilted and stiff, especially in this
tinny old recording. And it occurs to me that all my
tango training has been an act of self-deception. I
thought I was learning a new culture and a new way of
being human, but all I was really doing was learning a
social dance as European in its erect posture and
motionless hips as classical ballet. In samba I see
the African influence, in tango it seems all filtered
out, cleaned up and Europeanized. The Other that I
was seeking isn't there. I don't want to dance
tango--above all not with Tuliana now that I have seen
her do samba.

A woman at the next table engages me in conversation.
In painful English, her forehead wrinkled with
self-doubt, she asks me about San Francisco, tells me
of the pictures she has seen, of how she would like to
go there someday. I realize that for her, America is
the Other, just as Brazil has been for me.

The hearty bald-headed man who tried to teach me the
samba basic to the music of D'Arienzo at a milonga
last Wednesday comes up to greet me and give me
another samba lesson. "Right-left-right, left-right
left. Bump your hip out like were shutting the car
door with it." I laugh and play along with him, but I
feel cold inside. It kills me when these Brazilians
are so nice to me, trying to bridge the Cultural
Divide.

I think about leaving.

Then I notice all these women that no one is dancing
with. I can't read their faces, but I can imagine
what they might be feeling. And I decide that even if
I can't dance for my own pleasure tonight, I can at
least dance for theirs. I pull myself together and
starting asking.

I am surprised to find that they are, on the whole,
fairly decent dancers. If I am clear enough in my
lead, they can usually follow. So I am careful. I
try to restrain myself, keep it simple. I remember
Paulo saying that one should learn to be such a
considerate leader that even a first dance with a
beginner can leave her saying, "Wow, that was
wonderful."

So I focus on the woman I am with, the feel of her
head against my cheek, the curve of her shoulder, the
placement of her feet. And I begin to find that here
and there I can do some of those interesting things
that Paulo does, the surprising touches that turn a
dull dance into something extraordinary. And the
woman is able to follow. My sadness never leaves me,
but the dancing goes well.

At about one o'clock I say my goodbyes. I tell
Tuliana that when I saw her dancing samba I want to
quit tango and go home. She looks alarmed. "Never do
that! Tango is such a wonderful dance!" She kisses
me on the cheek and reminds me that we have another
lesson with Paulo on Monday.

I know that my Merda Moment will pass, if not now or
tomorrow, perhaps on the day after, because I came to
Brazil honestly, with an open mind, and because
Tuliana is right about tango. Never mind whether it
is more European than African, or not. Humans
everywhere find ways to express themselves in art,
music and dance, and all of it has the power to open
our hearts to the glory of life.

I haven't traveled in vain.