Walking

I’ve traveled quite a bit and I’ve lived in a few countries.  Music always ties me to these countries.  It ties me to all life experiences.  A song can bring back a taste or a smell or something I’ve seen.

I can listen to Italian music and think of green hills with cypresses, train rides, people, food and sometimes streets with Renaissance or medieval architecture.  I can listen to music that was important during my time in Switzerland and remember sitting on a train, looking at Lake Zurich.

When it comes to Buenos Aires, when I hear its music (in this case, Tango), I feel like I’m walking down the street in one of its barrios.  Always the streets.  Always walking.

When I listen to D’Agostino with Vargas singing, I’m in Once in the fall or winter, walking down my street, Adolfo Alsina, or maybe standing on the balcony looking down at the street and wanting to walk on it (I did this when it was too cold to go outside).

When I listen to Rodriguez (w/Moreno), I’m turning from Juan B. Justo on to Sanchez, the street I lived on in La Paternal, in the heat of the summer.

There is a particular Di Sarli interpretation of the tango Nobleza de Arrabal, and for some reason whenever I hear that, I’m walking with Joli in the wintertime, from her old place in Villa Urquiza to Villa Pueyrredon to pick up her stepson from jardin.  In some parts of the tango I can actually visualize and feel specific streets.  I can even tell you what shoes I’m wearing.

It remains constant.  I always think of streets, particular characteristics of them, what they feel like, what sorts of trees there might be, the curvy entryways of some of the buildings.  My feet touching the ground.  My weight changing and my hips shifting as I move on my left leg, then my right, then my left, then my right…

For me, Tango really is a walk.  It’s a walk in Buenos Aires.  The walk of a porteño.

(a street in La Paternal)