I knew my
life would never be the same the day I named my pet fish after my Latino salsa
dance instructor. I’d christened my
saltwater Blue Damsel fish of unknown sex Antonio*. In a moment of lucid reflection I realized
that I had completely lost it. At least
I had little worries that anyone would pity me for having named my pet
something mundane like Fred, or Bubbles or please no, a fish called Wanda.
That is, if
anyone ever found out.
So I kept my
fish called Antonio a secret until I discovered that I was not alone in my
newfound passion—salsa dancing.
Looking
back, it was the first dip that hooked me. It happened on a dance floor not
much bigger than a Spanish tapa in a hot, smoky cigar bar in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. Virtually no fresh air circulated, a stogie haze coated my skin and
clothes, and leering stares from beady-eyed, mustachioed men made me feel naked
and self-conscious.
I was
fifteen minutes into lesson number two with Antonio. I couldn’t get the steps
right and was moving about as gracefully as a Holstein. Plus, with no dance background, I needed to
learn important things like maintaining the proper frame and following a man’s
lead. Concentration just to master the
basic steps was not something I’d anticipated.
How could I possibly have fun when I needed to think? And what was I doing in a bar alone at forty
years old? I should be home, married,
with 2.2 children, making a soufflé or potpourri or something.
And then
without warning, Antonio dipped me. One
instant I was vertical, the next my head was just inches from the floor. In one
fluid move that had lasted only a few seconds I was changed forever.
My ardor for
salsa developed rapidly after that first dip.
I started taking lessons twice a week and going out dancing another two nights
a week. For the first time in my life I stopped caring about my age. Before 40, or as I prefer to think of it,
B.S., “before salsa”, I’d been dreading the big “4 – 0”. But now my age truly did feel like nothing
more than a number. In fact, I began to
feel like a teenager again.
I spent the
early months like a zealous missionary spreading the gospel of this
fantastically fun fountain of youth that I had discovered. Naturally, I’d attempted to convert my
non-salsa friends. Try it! It’s incredible, fantastic, better than sex
(well, almost).
But I didn’t
win over a single friend. A few tried it
but gave up after a lesson or two. Could
it be that salsa was not for everyone?
But this seemed impossible so I continued to regale them with minute details
of my new salsa adventures until one day I realized that they looked bored.
Eventually, any semblance of politeness was abandoned. They begged me to stop talking about what
they now referred to as my “dark side.”
A few months
later my 401k mistakenly cashed out. I
held the unexpected five-figure check in my trembling fingers feeling as though
I’d won a lottery jackpot. No doubt this
was a message from the universe to spend my life savings on private salsa
lessons and sexy salsa clothes.
After a year
I outgrew Milwaukee’s salsa scene and started traveling one-hundred eighty
miles round trip to Chicago to go dancing two nights a week.
One night I
realized that my passion might be more of an addiction. My partner and I were under the lights in the
center of the dance floor when ten seconds into our dance, my bra unhooked in
the back. I had on a skin-tight flesh
colored tank top. Any movement of the
bra and my breasts would be fully exposed.
Of course any sane woman would’ve excused herself immediately to
dash to the restroom for an emergency re-adjustment. But I continued to dance because of the
following salient facts:
1) “Celos”
by Marc Anthony, one of my favorite salsa songs, was playing;
2) I was
dancing with Javier, one of my favorite partners. When he dips me the earth moves, making me
feel as though I’m starring in a Hollywood movie, having the best sex of my
life and eating Godiva chocolates by the pound without gaining weight, all
rolled into one incredible feeling;
3)
If my
breasts were bared I certainly wasn’t risking arrest. In fact, I could attract more dance
partners.
Obviously
there was only one alternative. I kept
dancing unconcerned about whether I’d crossed that line between sanity and
hopeless obsession. But then, a few weeks later, while using the restroom at my
favorite club, I found out that perhaps I wasn’t so crazy after all.
“Yeah, my boobs popped out one night,”
announced an attractive Latina as she primped in the bathroom mirror. “I just stuffed ‘em back in and kept
dancing.”
Trying to
keep breasts intact and covered while wearing revealing salsa attire is a
mystery not yet solved by the laws of physics or Maidenform. Another night I joined a heated discussion
about the pros and cons of duct tape for those flimsy tops for which no
brassiere exists. Duct tape works, but almost too well. It’s almost like smearing breasts with super
glue and putting them inside a plaster cast.
The one time I tried it, my breasts were red, raw and wrinkled like
prunes when I'd finally removed it. (I
wonder, do the Duct Tape Guys know about this?)
Some women
use the stick-on silicone cups, but I find they slide off with excessive
sweating, something I’d discovered in the middle of a dance at the Puerto Rico
Salsa Congress last summer when I realized that the left cup was intact, but
that the right had slithered down to my navel.
Over a few
months, my two trips a week to Chicago had gradually turned into three. One night, I took a brief break from dancing
to order a bottle of water. A man at the
bar struck up a conversation with me.
“You drive
all the way from Milwaukee just to salsa?” he said in shock.
“What do you
mean ‘just’ and how did you get into this club?” I almost responded. But I could see in his eyes that he thought I
was insane. Self-doubt set in.
I sought out
and quizzed every salsa regular who was willing to spare a few minutes of
dancing time to talk. I found dozens of
people who went out dancing five or six nights a week. One woman confessed that she owned three
hundred pairs of salsa shoes. Another woman had quit law school to become a
professional salsa dancer. A man I often
danced with told me that he was taking Pilates for dancers classes five days a
week to improve his flexibility for salsa—this was in addition to holding down
a full-time job and taking six salsa lessons a week. Another guy had had an expensive dance studio
built in his basement where he took private lessons and held salsa parties.
Whew, I was
okay, clearly not in the same league of insanity as those people. But I continued to wonder, what was it about
salsa that made me love it so?
Was it
simply the release of endorphins? No.
That’s a side benefit realized with regular types of exercise.
Could it be
that salsa is a pure form of communication?
Certainly, no words are necessary to elicit the intense feelings of
euphoria and exhilaration experienced while dancing with a partner with whom
one shares "salsa chemistry."
Is it that
salsa attracts people from diverse backgrounds and cultures? I love the fact that salsa appeals to people
of all races and I’ve danced with everyone from busboys to brain surgeons. And best of all, no one cares—it’s all about
the dancing.
Is it the
music? Just hearing the music makes me
want to move whether I’m in my car, kitchen or on the dance floor.
After four
years of trying to unravel the mystery of why salsa sets my soul on fire, I’ve
finally come to understand that it truly doesn’t matter. Call it a passion, addiction, obsession or
infatuation; the bottom line is the still the same. Salsa is pure joy and fun, not to mention
incredibly sexy and calorie-free.
So go ahead,
lock me up and throw away the key. I
won’t mind, provided I can keep dancing.
*This name
has been changed to protect the innocent—the fish, definitely not the
instructor.
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