Photo by Adrian Iacomi.
Buenos Aires in winter, at Villa Malcom, a
milonga. I was with some friends talking, drinking a cola and wandering who to
dance with, outside our own circle. It was not long before this thin, smiley
gringa came to our table and greeted my friends. A tango dancer she was of
course. Tall and with a dancer walk she was. She had just come back after a
trip outside town, she felt a little rusty. All right, I said to myself. I
invited her to dance, no cabeceo complexity involved.
She fumbled for her shoes, failed two times to
tie them properly - lucky me, as that gave me time to forget I had not danced
properly for more than four bloody long months. And there we were, with a big
smile, face to face, preparing to enter the ronda. Closed my eyes were, I
breathed in, extended, breathed out and she was in my embrace, we created the
connection, so perfect that we started to breathe together and time seemed to
had stopped, it was just us and d’Arienzo, and some faded buzz around.
Sitting at the table, we talked and I found out she had been dancing for
just three months, a beginner as they say, but a perfect partner with a
wonderful smile in a crowded milonga.
