Omar Vega Feb 13 1959 - Sep 19 2008

R.I.P.
Worlds Greatest dancer and teacher of Milonga Traspie

Strange Days

One of the aspects I truly miss about tango is my anonymity. I long for it and I don't know how to recapture/regain it. They know me in all the cities. Maybe if I found a milonga on the Moon or Mars... I haven't gone out this week. Maybe I'm thinking they'll forget who I am, but highly doubtful. Most likely I will get chastised for not showing up at this or that milonga. I think I have what the Turks call hüzün. It's a kind of melancholy. I don't know what the Argentines call it. Maybe they would call it being "homesick". I miss the good old days. Walking into the darkened room. Only the music greeting me. Embracing strangers on the dancefloor. And only on the dancefloor. (Don't get me wrong - I love my tango friends - but these days it's an hour and 45 minutes of greeting and hugging before I even make it to the dancefloor and by then my arms are tired.) The milongas, like New York, like the world, gets smaller and smaller the older you get. I suppose I am longing for my youth. And a room where no one knows my name.