Compass & Quill

The thing I love about traveling to foreign climes is the anonymity. I can be anyone I want to, because no one knows me. No one knows my limitations, preferences, or background. They can’t equate me with anything because there are no measurements by which to judge me.

I love going to new places because I can walk in and just be me. I am adrift in the world and able to use every part of myself in whatever way I want to use it. If only I were that mysterious girl who owned every room she entered. Instead, I’m a fly on the wall, a sad little wallflower. I am, after all, Maus.

Tonight I went to a tango party. I’d never danced the tango before, and I didn’t really know what to expect. When I walked into the room, I knew that I’d be in trouble. It was a couples dance, and everyone clutched each other tight. I was instantly uncomfortable. Ever since I started dating The Man, I began to grow wary of touching other men.

I had always had an aversion to being touched (by anyone) without my permission, but was always a flirty, physical person, so these two proclivities kind of cancelled each other out. But after The Man and I started seeing each other, I got more and more nervous about touching other men, until it became a “thing.” I was unnerved by it. I felt guilty, and scared, and didn’t know how to handle the contact. Maybe it’s because I had always used touch to flirt before?

I don’t know. I’m not feeling much like analyzing myself at the moment, either. It’s just that I wanted to talk about tango, and how I desperately want to do it, but am afraid to. I am a stranger in a strange land, and I want to belong.

Maybe I’m afraid because deep inside, I know I’ll learn something from it. It seems so casually sensual. Maybe I’ll find what I’ve been looking for there, and realize that I’m not getting what I’m looking for elsewhere.

How should I know what I’ll find? I could barely bring myself to stay through the intro session tonight. I danced hand-in-hand with four men, and it was more than enough touching for one night. What is wrong with me? Either way, I’m going to an “intensive,” a four-hour course to learn the tango, early next month. I will discover what it is that I’ve been hiding from myself. I will dance.