Accept, Embrace, Let Go

My lesson as of late is this: Accept, Embrace, Let Go. Sounds like a pretty good life lesson overall, but it's in dancing tango that I am able to understand what each statement means to me.

In tango there will be a moment. That moment. I may be sitting alone, or with friends, and a man [or woman] comes over to me. This person sees me and no one else but m-e. And for whatever reason he asks me to dance. It could be a formal request or a look he gives me. At that very moment this person is extending me an invitation, an invitation to share space together, time together. This moment could be fantastic, it could be awful, I could mess up terribly, or fall! I could also have the best dance of my life.. Anything could happen in this moment. I am left with a choice, will I Accept?

How odd it is to touch and be touched; to hold and be held by a stranger. How odd, how liberating, how confusing, and exhilarating all at once. My mind races most times when I dance with people I don't know. I think about what they are thinking about, I wonder if they feel this awkward and yet oddly comfortable all at once like me. I wonder if they can tell when I tense and when I relax. I suddenly realize I am no longer I at all, but here in this space and time I becomes we it becomes us instead of me.  

We create this space between us, and as we embrace we both accept with our bodies that this space is ours for a time, and ours alone. It is through this embrace that the very dance itself is translated. We begin to dance, and at times eliminate the space between us until we are heart to heart, cheek to cheek. How very odd a thing it is to embrace another human with whom you have no other tie to other than the fact that you both breathe air and bleed blood and dance..

 Then comes the last step, the final note has played and we stop. For a moment, we stay in our embrace, drinking in all that has transpired between us. We soak in all the mess we made on the floor, or all the beauty we created. And just like that, we becomes I and you. Two separate people who just so happened to share something together. Maybe something wonderful, maybe not. In letting go however, I discover what it is I miss or don't miss about our shared time. In letting go- I see all I have gained.

To really Accepting, Embracing, and Letting Go,

K