Day 11. Nostalgia

Woke up this morning feeling down. It might sound strange to some people, but I am actually missing New York. It might be the fatigue. That would effect one's mood. Or it might be the beer that I had before went to bed last night. Or the combination of both.

I logged on to Facebook to checked out the photos of last night's milonga in New York, posted by a fellow tanguera. Seeing the familiar faces put a little smile on my face. As I said before, it is not where you dance, it is with who you dance.

Don't get me wrong. I am enjoying Buenos Aires and enjoying the friends here as more of them are coming. I am experiencing tango in different ways and absorbing it from different perspectives. I have been living in two different cultures: Chinese and American. Now through tango I am living in the third.

Sometimes, you don't miss something or someone until they are thousands miles away. I am sure I will be missing Buenos Aires, like I did, and the people whom I grow to like by the time I get back to New York. As I was younger, I had this strong feeling of nostalgia. Maybe it was because I went to live in a foreign land by myself when I was young. That feeling has gone for a few years while I had been living a more stable life: stable job, stable friends and a stable relationship (even it was rocky). One day , se fue, gone the relationship, gone the life that I had planned. Though I still have the stable job and stable friends.

My heart has found a place in tango. It is also a place that I travel with caution. I learned to shield and turn away certain feeling in the dance. And there are certain songs that I am reluctant yet longing to dance to. Tango without feeling is very unsatisfied. Feeling in tango is hard to find. I savor each of those deeply connected tandas. Each of them is nostalgic.