On Top of the World

This past week has contained many wonders, including a plethora of cathartic experiences. The free online Merriam-Webster Dictionary attributes the following three definitions to catharsis.

1. Elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression.
2. Purification or purgation of emotions (such as pity and fear) primarily through art.
3. Purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or relase from tension.

Number 1 was revealed to me through the mysticism of Tango. For those of you who don't know, I spent a blissful year of my undergraduate studies in Argentina. This is where I fell in love with many things, including empanadas, choripanes, Quilmes, a variety of men (but one in particular), and Tango. Argentina is the birthplace of Tango. Not the ballroom Tango, the street Tango. The kind of Tango that disregards societal niceties and puts you in a trance. When you watch a couple dance Tango on the streets of San Telmo, you feel like you're watching an intimate moment that isn't meant to be shared. The universe shrinks and the passion between this man and this woman is the only thing that exists and, really, the only thing that matters.

So, when my therapist BFF told me that a famous Argentine dancer was staying at the Treehouse and taking everyone to a local Milonga, I didn't think twice about inviting myself and jumping on the Tango bandwagon. Completely unphased by the fact that I was the youngest of the group by a solid 30 years, I had a blast. You can't go wrong with tequila and Tango. I entered my Tango trance and happily stayed there for the rest of the night.

Tango is kind of like a foreign language. When you don't know it, it's just a swirl of beautiful sounds and sights that inundate you without the nuissance of automatic interpretation and internal processing. It just is. It's complexity is daunting; however, once you begin to unravel its meanings and secrets, this familiarity is even more revealing and fulfilling. I never learned how to dance Tango in Argentina, but here in Mexico City I got my own personal lesson in the foyer of my B&B.

Number 2 arrived with a bang at a Mexico City gay club. I do realize that art is subjective. So when I declare that art (cathartic art at that) can be found in a pair of thongs and platform shoes on a stage in the middle of a gay club dancing to techno, I know that many people won't agree with me. Let me paint a picture. Of course, there were the obligatory (skantily-clad) male dancers on various platforms throughout the club. They were slathered with glitter and wore various costumes ranging from cheerleaders to Aztec warriors (mind you, these costumes generally consisted of enough material to construct a loincloth), with the common denominator being a pair of insanely high, clear platform shoes. And then there were the club-goers who hadn't really consolidated their look, such as the hot mess wearing a lime green apron as a top and either a very poorly constructed wig or a really bad weave which had inadvertently become dreaded due to his/her manic dancing.

But I found my catharsis in the young guy who bravely climbed onto one of the platforms in the middle of the crowd while the real dancers took a break. He was wearing a pair of skinny jeans, white suspenders, white sunglasses, and a K&B purple shirt from American Apparel, with Legalize Gay written on it in white. He danced his little heart out. His happiness and sass reached me all the way across the club in the DJ booth and put an extra shimmy in my shake.

I know I should probably explain how I ended up in the DJ booth of a gay club in Mexico City, but I don't really find it necessary.

I had to travel to Teotihuacan to find number 3. Teotihuacan is an ancient city of ruins that houses the Pyramid of the Sun, which is amazingly the third largest pyramid in the world. I have been here once before, as a young sorority girl of 18, before I considered multicultural sensitivity a virtue. It was here that I lived my most sterotypical American tourist moment. Upon hearing a language I didn't recognize that sounded quite ugly, I snidely asked my fellow classmate, What the hell language is THAT? (Except I didn't say hell, use your imagination) The perpetrator of this hideous language turned calmly, looked me square in the eye, and informed me that it was German. In perfect English. I have never been so embarassed and ashamed of my arrogance and ignorance.

I figured it was about time I returned to the scene of the crime to ask the pyramid for forgiveness, so my therapist friend and I took the metro to the Northern bus terminal and got a ticket to Teotihuacan. First class, 3 dollars, no AC. I finally made it to the top of the pyramid, found a spot overlooking the neighboring Pyramid of the Moon, and made amends. We sat up there for a few hours, watching the legions of tourists come and go and enjoying the few moments of solitude between tours. My friend breathed a sigh of contentment and remarked that it felt like we were sitting on top of the world.

The week before I left for Mexico, in the midst of chaos, stress, and extreme anxiety, I had cracked open a fortune cookie and read, Soon you will be sitting on top of the world. In that moment, that kind of serenity and peace didn't seem possible, but I'm a sucker for the impossible, so I brought it with me for good luck...along with my Maw Maw's rosary and a multi-colored bouncy ball (For some reason, I have deemed bouncy balls an omen of good luck. I almost always have one on me).

Three weeks later, it seems my Chinese fortune has come true.