Lapidary Blue
Often after I write a song I realize my subconscious was processing something. When I wrote Lapidary Blue I was trying to figure out my changing role in a tango community where I am an organizer, a professional dancer and teacher. My role as a social dancer was changing. It was hard to see where and when I fit, especially at an event I organized. If I wasn’t working in a specific moment, when and with whom do I dance?
This song says nothing about those thoughts. But the song opened a portal in my mind that helped me land on a metaphor that taught me something I’d like to share:
This song says nothing about those thoughts. But the song opened a portal in my mind that helped me land on a metaphor:
Lapidary blue – perfect me and you
Fragmentary true – impossible to do
Polished rocks and gemstones – standing guard tonight
Preach to me of brimstone – fires burning bright
Cut and polished diamonds – rings of solid gold
Sounds of singing sirens – wanting you to hold
Proof of life and living – divorced of pain and toil
Take me as I am giving – fertile hearts to spoil
Lapidary blue – perfect me and you
Fragmentary true – impossible to do
Polished rocks and gemstones – standing guard tonight
Preach to me of brimstone – fires burning bright
Cut and polished diamonds on rings of solid gold
Sounds of singing sirens wanting you to hold
Proof of life and living divorced of pain and toil
Take me as I am giving fertile hearts in soil
Lapidary blue perfect me and you!
Subconsciously I was realizing that I had become a very advanced dancer and most social dancers could not keep up with me in my dance. Yet, I still wanted to help people grow and become good dancers. For me that split the community into two categories: Those that study with me and those that don’t. Who gets a dance first? Obviously those that pay me to teach them.
That broke the groups into another category: Those that take private lessons and those that take group classes. Obviously those that take privates spend more. There have been times when I was teaching over 35 hours of private lessons a week – and 4 classes with 20 to 30 in each class. It would be impossible at a regular milonga to dance with all of those people in a night. On top of that I have friends that I was dancing with before I was a teacher. So being able to satisfy everyone was impossible. As a consequence I was making people angry and some thought I was being snobby or mean – even those that were fully financially invested in my career, and of course those that never studied with me at all.
When someone would suddenly cold shoulder me or call me out on not having danced with them and it would embarrass me or hurt my feelings. Mainly because I hadn’t realized what was happening. My personae was getting away from me – and most of it was actually outside of me. I was hurt, and I hurt others. Not of it intentional, but all of it existential.
So this song appears and I realized it was all a metaphor. Suddenly I could see more clearly how to navigate this path of being a social dancer and a professional and an organizer. The song uses rocks and diamonds and gemstones as an analogy and it was in that that it dawned on me tango was like martial arts. The levels are vast – but in tango they are unbelted and labled. I am a high degree black belt. I have no business sparing with a white belt except in helping them exercise their abilities and movements. There would be no way for me to let go and actually spar with someone at that level. But as a professional dancer, there were times when someone put me on the spot to dance with them, then I would dance too vigorously and consequently confuse them by asking to much of their abilities. This was a subconscious way of getting even for being trapped in a dance with them. For that I am and always will be very sorry. It was never intentional. Though it was thoughtless and I apologize.
It took some years for me to figure out what to do. I became a dancer because I love to dance, but as I got better and better it was harder and harder for me to get a satisfying dance. I had learned to get satisfaction by repeating foundational movements with precision and fluidity over and over again, but there were times when I would crave a dance with someone that could keep up with me – someone other than my wife and partner.
This is the realization I got from this song. How to recognize the perfection in one another and at the same time realize that we are not all in the same place. Some need more polishing, some are gems, some are polished polished and shiny, some are just rocks but all are precious stones.
With Love and Respect
Rusty
