Nostalgia
No tango
potion without a great big dose of it.
What is
it though?
Maybe
you'll help me understand.
nostos in
Greek is the return, algos is the pain.
Pain of
the return?
Is the
pain in the wanting to return or in the return itself? or both?
Return to
what?
To a
place, to people, to a past... Nostalgia is not geography or
history, nor is it a phone book. Bigger than that: it's the sense of
loss.
Let's look at the ("voluntary") immigrant. Where lies his worse
suffering?
Cut off
from home, he keeps images in his heart. Years go by and the images
acquire a "static". No real change in them but they are now
both attractive and repulsive. Missing home. It doesn't really take
fake pretty colours. It's an empty hole that memories try to fill.
Memory is in any case naturally selective, fades the bad and
heightens the better.
Home is
not just the place, it's our whole life until we left.
Is that
what we miss?
If it had
been so wonderful, we would not have left.
Maybe we
hurt for having failed to stay. Why did we look for the unknown, the
better, the greener fields? It could have been an escape. So, it
could be time to find out what we were running away from.
Not easy.
Not just a matter of looking at the past from all angles with all
the mirrors of our experience. Not enough. Our feelings have the
static, stuck in the departure lounge. And the unconscious fear of
finding out, of hurting more, makes us blind.
Let's go
and see then. Go home.
Home is
the same. And not. The present there doesn't answer the new
questions of the past. Old wounds open, new raw ones: people do not
see you as you are now, they try to shrink you to their own
warped image of what you were. Blindness and dizziness. Loss of the
old you, loss of the new you.
And loss
of the images. Nothing to fill the hole with any more.
The loss
will remain.
And even
when, miraculously, we learn to integrate and value every
experience, every feeling of there and here, of then and now, it
will remain. But not necessarily as a negative force...
So,
while we're on the subject, I hope you enjoying the new track, not
tango but folklore: "Nostalgias Santiagueñas" interpreted by Dino
Saluzzi (bandoneon), composed by Los Hermanos Abalos. And that bombo
is more than the strongest heartbeat...
... to be continued
xj
Hi gang,
It's home.
Not yet the cosy living-room I would like to invite you in. The
furniture has not been delivered and it needs a lick of paint, but it's
not a derelict shed or a cold office lobby either. The fire is burning
and the coffee, mate, chocolates are on the table. So, come in and
stretch your legs.
Oh yeah, another tango site?
Yes and no.
This place doesn't exist to educate anyone about tango, you only need to
do a quick search and hundreds of sites will do that for you, the roots,
the rules, how to dance and not to dance, iconic figures, places to go,
the teachers...
No encyclopedia, no bible either.
Tango touches our souls. With so much intensity that each one of us
thinks we have found the One and Only Truth and are driven to
ram our thoughts down everyone's throat. And on many sites you will find
long personal essays about what tango is and should be. That's good and
bad, good to share and talk but bad to impose on others a vision that is
after all only as big or as little as our own experience of life.
This is the home of La Rosa.
Mine. For you.
Of course, this place will let you know what La Rosa is up to, ie,
milongas, occasional workshops, music and musicians and whatever her
thorns and roots happen to dig into.
If you pop in, just be ready to put up with bad jokes,
moods, interminable emo-philo-prose, emphatic notes about the latest
music find, occasional sharp tongue comments and a bit of gossip...
whatever it is that I feel is worth sharing.
I'll keep the swearing to a minimum, promised! and here, aren’t you
lucky, you don't have to share my nicotine...
If you are on the Rosa's list, I'll still barge into your inbox for
news, meanderings etc, but the messages will also be put up here, not
that they're worth reading again but with a bit more permanency than
email.
Tango is one big paradox.
Just as it is for each of you, it's my life, my emotions, my dance, my
soul, my thoughts... never have I felt as much of an individual.
But it certainly cannot exist alone.
For one thing: not only do we dance with a partner, but we need the
milonga, lots of other people to share our dance.
So this is for you indeed.
Your photos will be framed and hung up on the walls, images are not
important in tango, they're even dangerous sometimes. But piccies are
good little reminders of an atmosphere, a special dance, a meeting, a
good laugh... and they like playing with our nostalgia.
Obviously you can walk in and out of this place without saying a word,
but…. washing the coffee cups after your visit will be a pleasure if
you've left a note, your news... a little something?
Just use the mail tab.
The track has changed again, have you noticed?
Malena.
This version is definitely special: it's a recording of Silvia. Some of
you got to enjoy her voice at the last milonga in Pucks' Hall with
Las Señoritas, our Rachel and Xenia.
See you Saturday, see you Tuesday…
Mille bises
jocelyne
