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“A SENSORY BRIDGE TO GLOBAL CULTURE”
PUBLISHER’S CORNER
EAD THIS DESCRIPTION OF THE DANCE:
Got it? This is not stamp collecting or golf. It does not describe life in a nursing home either.
A longtime friend asked me if my tango mania wasn’t a little over the top. “Tango? At your age? You must be out of your mind.” Perhaps. Silly to some. Comedy to others. Serious to me.
The blustery macho noises I make about tango disguise fearfulness. I fear the shrinking of life that goes with aging. I fear the boredom that comes with not learning, not taking chances, not getting out on a limb of some kind — where the fruit is. I fear traveling around as a senior spectator just looking at stuff without being involved in it. I fear the dying that goes on inside when you get up from the game to sit in the waiting room for the final checkout line. No!
I want the distinct pleasure of the anxious edge that comes from beginning something new that calls on all my resources and challenges my ego. I long for the excitement that comes from being able to say to a dancer, “I admire that. I want that. I do not know — teach me. I’ve come to learn.”
A dear friend died last week. Died, as we say, peacefully in his sleep after a long life and a quiet retirement. His files were organized, his basement and garage clean, and all his dues paid up. A tidy end.
Not for me. My goal now is to dance. All the dances. As long as I can. And then to sit down contented in a chair after the last elegant tango some sweet night and pass on because there just wasn’t another dance left in me.
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ROBERT FULGHUM
JOURNAL EXCERPT
DELUSIONS & REFLECTIONS OF
AN AGING NOVICE TANGUERO
ABOUT ROBERT FULGHUM
“DELUSIONS AND REFLECTIONS ON AN AGING NOVICE TANGUERO” was published with the author’s permission. Fulghum, also an accomplished painter/sculptor, is known for his journals and eight best selling books, including his famous All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Fulghum’s new novel, If You Love Me Still, Will You Love Me Moving – Tales from the Century Ballroom, is currently being published in Czech; the English version is scheduled for release soon.
The book is a collection of stories modeled after Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” that
chronicle experiences of people journeying to discover the possibilities of dancing,
and specifically focuses on tango as its model dance form. It’s about the urge to
dance, the process of learning it, love and romance elements that occur in dance.
Check back here for TL&N coverage on the upcoming book release. Learn more about
the author at:
http://robertfulghum.com.
CONTINUED
DEFINITION OF THE TANGO: The vertical expression of horizontal desire. Born as an expression of longing, lust, passion, loneliness, and conflict. It lives on as a dance that arises at the center of the soul to meet the dancing soul of another.
Often referred to as a three-minute love affair, tango is an exchange of mutual pleasure — sensual, without intimacy. And it’s forever true: it takes two to tango.
In tango we dance our emotions rather than speak them. The dance floor becomes a canvas, and our hearts become palettes. Feet and bodies paint sensuous emotions in sweeping strokes. With a dab of desire here and a shading of sorrow there, the tango comes to life. We dance tango because we have secrets.
1 Milonga is the name of a tango social dance event.
2 Tanguero Último, Spanish: the ultimate tango dancer.
FOOTNOTES
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Author Robert Fulghum, who learned everything he needed to know in kindergarten.
PAINTING BY DIMITRIS KATSIGIANNIS