“I'm going to teach you a different way to be strong,” she said. She placed her hand against my back. “Relax here.” It reminded me of something my tai chi instructor might have said years ago. Weighing less than ninety pounds, missing the right side of his neck, and draining a tube from his stomach every few hours, he was immovable. Even the three-hundred pound linebacker he selected during the first class of the semester walked away with a different understanding of the world around him. “Now here,” she said. There was a wall in front of me, and then it was gone. I had chosen yoga as a balm that could be rubbed into my hardened skin and the process was not unlike choosing tango as a pillow to hold over my face while I shouted.
“The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca” was the first I had heard of the man and between the covers of his book, “In Search of Duende,” I learned of the creature I had been trying to silence. Those peering in from the outside may be led to believe that tangueros dance with each other. They do not. They dance with the bulls inside themselves and either one or the other dies in the process. “There,” she said, finally, and I welcomed the release.
