“Quien bien te quiere, te hará llorar.”
“The one who loves you a lot can make you cry.”
IN THE HUSHED quiet of the night, Carolyn lay on her side watching the shadows fade into the silken haze of her mother’s bedroom wall. Steady sounds of ruffled breaths came from her mother as she slept, unaware of all that had happened to Carolyn that night while she was at dinner with Bryan. Her only report to her mom and Tikki, when they mercilessly needled her for date details, was that she and Bryan went to a restaurant in a renovated house that had tunnels. And the coffee was very good.
All the other details she kept to herself. She wasn’t ready to outwardly process any of Bryan’s well-thought-out plan for how their relationship could move forward. True to her agreement at the restaurant, she had heard him out, and now she was going to give herself a day to think about everything.
He could wait, he said. He had smiled and said that, if he had waited this many years, he could wait another day or two to know if he would have a second chance with her.
In so many ways, though, it didn’t feel like a second chance to Carolyn. It felt like part two of an affection that had blossomed in two young hearts before either of them knew what to do with that attraction.
Part of the challenge for Carolyn was that, if she would be willing to open her heart again all the way with Bryan, she knew it would mean she would need to come into a place of reconciliation with all that she didn’t understand about God and his uncomfortable ways. To overlap her life into Bryan’s world would mean praying together and living inside the mystery, as he called it. She couldn’t remain in her cloister of spiritual neutrality if the two of them were going to move forward.
She also knew that meant she would have to accept God on his terms. And they weren’t easy terms. He was God. He could do whatever he wanted. He wouldn’t be tamed by her demands or swayed by her cries. She would have to surrender to him.
And something deep inside her rebelled against that.
Carolyn sighed. I need to sleep. I need to wait until I’m fully rested before I decide if I can agree to Bryan’s plan. I need sleep. Sleep.
A gentle pat on her hip woke Carolyn. She opened her eyes slowly in the brightness of the sun-flooded room.
“Mom, are you pretending to be asleep again, or are you really asleep?” Tikki asked.
“I was really asleep. What time is it?”
“It’s almost nine. Grandma is anxious to get going. She doesn’t want to be late.”
“Late for what?” Carolyn noticed that Tikki was dressed, her new cute, short hair was styled, and she had makeup on.
“Don’t give me that! Late for what! Mom, you are going to take this dance lesson with us, and you can’t get out of it. I can’t believe you forgot.”
Carolyn pushed up on her elbow and pulled the clip from the back of her tussled hair. She yawned. “I can be ready in ten minutes.”
“Good. Hop to it. ¡Ándale! ¡Muy pronto! ¡Arriba!”
“Okay, okay. I got it. I’m going to hurry. Go tell Grandma I’m getting ready.”
When the three of them were in the taxi forty minutes later, Carolyn could tell her mother was nervous. She didn’t know if the nerves were over the possibility of their being late to Lydia’s for the first flamenco dance lesson, or if it had to do with the lesson itself.
The only reason Carolyn was doing this was for Tikki. She had a feeling the reason her mother was doing this was to finally feel as if she was on par with her sisters.
Once they were out of the cab and walking down a cobblestone alley that led to Lydia’s home, part of the reason for her mother’s nerves became clear as she reminded Carolyn and Tikki of their manners.
“I want you to know that Lydia is a highly respected woman, and I must show her honor.”
“Sí, Abuela. No te preocupes,” Tikki trilled, letting her grandmother know she didn’t have to worry.
“And I will try my best not to embarrass you,” Carolyn promised.
“No one is going to be embarrassed. All of us will try this, and we will learn something new today. ¿Sí?”
“Sí,” Carolyn agreed.
“Sí,” Tikki echoed.
They arrived in front of tall narrow doors that showed the wear of many years, and for the first time Carolyn felt a tinge of gladness that she was taking this flamenco dance lesson with her mom and Tikki. This immersion in her mother’s world was one of the reasons Carolyn had made this long journey. She didn’t come for Bryan—obviously, because she had no idea he was going to be here. She came to be with her mother in her mother’s world, and this was her chance to experience more of that world before she went home. This is what she had hoped Tikki would experience as well. And here they were.
The weathered doors opened in response to her mother’s tapping of the round metal ring against the wood. In the movies, plundering pirates would break down doors such as these and find chests filled with gold and jewels.
The treasure behind these doors was Lydia, a lovely woman with smooth brown skin who opened to them and welcomed Carolyn, Abuela Teresa, and Tikki into her home. Lydia pressed her cool cheek to Carolyn’s as she greeted her, sending feathery kisses into the air. First the right cheek to right cheek and then the left cheek to the left cheek. She spoke in rolling Spanish, taking efforts, it seemed, to make sure every “r” received sufficient tremors on her tongue before escaping her perfectly shaped lips. Lydia’s graying hair was pulled up in a smoothed-back bun. She led them into her home with an air of refinement, as if they were entering her castle.
The interior was far from castle status. The condition of the home surprised Carolyn. It was old and showed every sign of its age more obviously than Lydia did. The tile floor raised in irregular bumps. The paint was peeling on the walls, and the room they were directed into was dark and crowded with old furniture. This was how Carolyn remembered the feel of her grandparents’ house. Old and dark. It made her realize why her mother and Aunt Isobel preferred the open, light, and airy feel of the new apartment complex where they lived.
Lydia set to work moving back a sofa and an end table. Tikki and Carolyn stepped in to help her make room on the floor for their dance lessons. Lydia rolled up the faded rug and motioned for the three women to come stand in front of her in the newly cleared space.
With perfect posture, the five-foot-and-a-few-inches woman struck a pose in front of them. Her left arm was bent with ease in front of her tightened stomach, and her right arm rose in the air like a graceful calla lily. Her hands were fixed in a ballerina’s pose, with the thumb straight, first finger slightly bent and the remaining fingers curled in easy succession.
All her directions were in Spanish, and all her motions were fairly easy to follow. Not that Carolyn could imitate the grace and ease with which Lydia moved through the positions. Carolyn did notice that her mother came by the movements naturally and seemed to already have an idea of what she was supposed to do.
“Are you sure this is your first lesson?” Carolyn asked her mother as she switched her right-hand position to over her stomach and tried to get the elbow of her left arm bent just right.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“You look like you already know what to do.”
“It’s in our blood. Did you understand what Lydia just said? This is a dance of life.”
Carolyn pulled back her shoulders and willed that the half of her blood that ran as red as Spanish rioja wine would flow through her veins and tell her hands and arms what to do.
No sooner had Lydia showed them the basic arm motions than she switched tactics. Now they were to stand with their hands on their waists just above their hips. The position reminded Carolyn of the statue beside Al Macaroni of the fisherman’s wife standing with her hands on her hips, gazing out to sea at twilight.
Lydia explained something else, and Carolyn said, “Mom, can you translate? I’m not catching much of what she’s saying.”
“I’m lost,” Tikki added.
“She is explaining that this is the dance that draws out of you what is held deepest inside. Most women cannot dance flamenco with true … what is the English word? Fortitude? Honesty?”
“Guts?” Tikki ventured.
“Yes, that’s close. Most women cannot dance with this sort of passion in their gut because they have not loved enough or lived enough or lost enough to know this depth.”
Before Carolyn could process that thought, her mother went on to say, “We’re going to concentrate on the feet now. We will move only the feet. Our hands, she said, must stay here, at the waist.”
“Cinco paseos,” Lydia said, and Carolyn’s mother echoed, “Five steps.”
Carolyn followed the steps with her left foot lunging forward, then she stepped to the side with her right, then forward and to the other side and then back. As she pounded the floor in her practical, black, slip-on shoes, she realized her steps were too big. Her feet weren’t straight. She was clomping about instead of sliding from position to position. Tikki and Carolyn’s mom seemed to pick up the steps more readily, which was no surprise.
“No, no, no.” Lydia stopped and pointed to Carolyn’s feet and tapped her right leg so that Carolyn would begin with the right, not the left. Lydia demonstrated once more, and Carolyn tried again and fumbled again. She let out her frustration in a growl.
“Tranquila, Carolyn,” Lydia said with complete calm and a motion for Carolyn to breathe. “Tranquila.” She continued her instructions in softly spoken Spanish, making small gestures with her lovely hands.
“She is saying these five steps embody the journey of life. We begin always with the right. One step to the right, followed by the left foot coming along behind. Then the left foot moves back to where it began, and the sympathetic right foot follows the left foot halfway with a small step. And then with confidence the right foot follows the rest of the way to the left foot with the fifth step. This is made lightly and with confidence.”
Lydia stood tall and straight in the final position, as Carolyn’s mother said, “And we end up back where we began, but we are wiser and more experienced because of the steps we have traveled.”
“I love this!” Tikki said. “This is my life right now. I need to return home wiser and more experienced, that’s for sure.”
The three women went through the cinco paseos again. Carolyn knew her shoulders had slumped, and her head had jutted forward and was bobbing along after each step. She knew that nothing about her position, posture, or pace looked anything like her instructor’s. But she was trying. She was going through the motions. That had to count for something.
Lydia stopped. She stepped closer to Carolyn. A deep passion blazed in Lydia’s fiery eyes. With a swirl of faithfully rolled “r’s,” Lydia expressed herself as if she were imparting to Carolyn the ancient secret of life and womanhood.
“She is telling you that in life, it is not enough just to do the steps. You cannot merely go through the motions. You must dance from the stomach up. The way you are moving, she says you are a loose woman. This is no way to dance or live.”
“A loose woman?” Tikki teased Carolyn, giving her a pat on the side. “You hide it so well.”
Lydia placed one open palm on Carolyn’s stomach and the other on the small of Carolyn’s back. She pressed firmly on the soft flesh that Carolyn kept hidden behind the tummy control panel of her jeans.
Carolyn’s mother explained Lydia’s stream of words. “She is telling you that this is where life happens within you as a woman. In your stomach. In your gut. It is here, in this deep place, where a woman invites her husband and where her babies are cradled before they are born. This is where she nurtures and brings forth new life. Here is where a woman holds all her secrets and hides her hurts and her dreams. Your dance must come from this same place. From the stomach up. When you dance like that, then you will begin to live like a Woman of the Canaries.”
“Oh, that was beautiful.” Tikki rounded back her shoulders and drew in her stomach. “I love that. From the stomach up. Come on, Mom, you loose woman, you, we can do this.”
Carolyn placed her hands on her sides and pulled in her stomach muscles. Lydia stepped away and gave a nod for her to begin. With her chin up and leading with the right foot, Carolyn and Tikki began in sync, taking each step from the stomach up. Right, left, left, right, right. Back where she started, wiser for the journey.
Carolyn’s mother sedately applauded the two of them.
Tikki broke out in the best smile. She had tiny glimmers of delight in her eyes. “You did it, Mom! Look at you! You’re dancing! You and I are dancing. Oh, this makes me happy.”
Carolyn smiled and received a nod of approval from Lydia before she moved on to the next step.
“Las cruces.” Lydia demonstrated how the left foot begins and crosses behind the right in a series of invisible crosses that seemed to be marked on the dark wood floor.
“This is where in life the sacred intersects with the common,” Carolyn’s mother explained, as she repeated the motions. She made the steps look easy and graceful. Her shoulders were back, and she was dancing as Carolyn knew her mother had always lived, from the stomach up, with the sacred and the common intersecting naturally.
Lydia moved on, introducing the chulero. This side step included a lunge of the minutest proportions but a lunge nonetheless.
“This is my favorite one so far,” Tikki said as she struck a lunge pose and held up her hand as if she were holding a sword. “En garde! I dare anyone to try to mess with us.”
Lydia put a quick halt to Tikki’s joking around and had her three pupils line up again and repeat the steps all the way through three more times. Cinco paseos, las cruces, chulero. Tikki had it all memorized, and Carolyn’s mother was right there with Tikki, anticipating the next move and making the smooth transitions. Carolyn felt she was admirably holding her own. She was a little slower, but each step was taken with her head held high.
“This next movement is with the right arm.” Carolyn’s mother gracefully repeated Lydia’s demonstration and raised her right arm while keeping her elbow bent slightly.
“Keep your wrist tilted over your head, fingers in harmony with each other, thumb relaxed.”
Lydia looked up to her hand, slowly turned her wrist so that the palm faced her as if she were holding an invisible ball. She drew her hand to her face as if giving it a sniff, and then with a confident staccato motion, she looked as if she were throwing away whatever invisible item she had been holding in her hand.
Lydia did the motions again, rapidly explaining each movement as Carolyn’s mother slipped into her easy undercurrent of translating for Carolyn and Tikki. “This is the garden. Life, your life, is the Garden of Eden, and you are Eve. Now reach up your hand. You pick the apple, you smell it …”
With bravado, Lydia thrust her arm across her front at an angle, as if quickly throwing away the apple. All the while her face was still turned to where her right arm had been in the air.
“She says you are Eve, and it is your turn. What will you decide? You sniff the apple, and you throw it away! Then you do this.”
With a snap, Lydia’s left arm went up with fingers gracefully posed. Her left index finger victoriously pointed to the heavens.
“That’s cool,” Tikki said. “Do it again.”
Lydia demonstrated, and Carolyn’s mother translated Lydia’s running commentary. “Every woman has this moment in her life when she must make her choice. You hold in your hand the apple. You smell it, and what will you do? It is your turn to make the decision. Will you take the bite? No! You are a strong woman. You throw it away and take a stand of victory because you did not fall for the trap.”
They all watched as Tikki repeated the motions. Then Carolyn’s mother did them with grace. All eyes turned to Carolyn. Lydia stepped closer and once again pressed her hand to Carolyn’s stomach and then to the small of her back. Carolyn stood tall as she reached up, picked the invisible apple, drew her arm past her nose, and threw the apple away. Her left arm rose to the ceiling, index finger pointed toward the heavens.
Lydia gave her nod of approval and said, “Ahora con la música.” She walked over to the end table in the corner and pressed a button on an old-fashioned boom box. Passionate flamenco guitar music filled the room. All three of the students lined up and improved their posture. They began with the cinco paseos.
As they moved into las cruces, Carolyn felt her stomach tighten. It was there, in that simple room with the paint-chipped walls and the passionate music surrounding these three generations of women, that Carolyn witnessed something ancient yet invisible. The sacred was intersecting with the common. They were being invited to step inside the mystery.
They performed the lunge in unison and continued the steps as they each reached for their imaginary apple. Carolyn suddenly knew what her “apple” was: the lie she had bitten into many times over the past seven years. She hesitated only a moment, and then with a snap, she “threw it away” and thrust her victorious left arm into the air.
Unexpectedly, a wave of tears came over her. She clutched her stomach with both arms, as if a deep place inside of her had been punctured and something was being released from her spirit.
Lydia was the first to notice Carolyn’s reaction to the music, the motions, and the meanings. She came to Carolyn’s side, slipped her arm around her, and made a soft cooing sound like a dove.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” Tikki and Carolyn’s mother gathered close. “Are you frustrated? Because you shouldn’t be. You did great! You danced all the steps. You’ve got it.”
Carolyn’s mother stroked her hair as a reservoir of silent tears continued to stream from Carolyn’s eyes. “What is it, mi niña?”
Carolyn didn’t know how to explain what had just happened inside her.
Lydia spoke, and Carolyn’s mother voiced the wise woman’s insight. “You have thrown away something that was poison to you, have you not?”
“Yes,” Carolyn whispered.
Tikki reached for Carolyn’s hand. “Mom, what did you throw away?”
Something inside her felt stilled. Tranquila.
“I was … I was angry. At God. I have been mad at him for a long time.” A silent trickle of tears flowed down Carolyn’s cheek. “When you’re angry at someone, you think you have the right to ignore them. I chose to throw away that anger. I can’t ignore God anymore.”
Abuela Teresa took Carolyn’s face in her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. Tikki put her arms around Carolyn and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. Lydia smiled softly.
The rest of the lesson was a blur. What had happened inside of Carolyn was in sharp focus. She felt different. New. Lighter inside as well as with her steps. The padding of sorrow, doubt, and pain that had been a hidden buffer in her life for so long seemed to have lifted.
As they said their good-byes, Carolyn was reluctant to leave this place of unexpected hope and healing. She wanted to align her life with the steady rhythm of the island and always live the way she felt right now, with her shoulders back and her stomach strong.
Lydia pressed her hand once again to Carolyn’s stomach, as if Carolyn was now carrying new life within her and Lydia was feeling for movement. She had a few last words.
“Lydia says that you have been given one of the best gifts this island has to give. For centuries sailors have come here for repairs and for supplies. They leave this island ready for the next part of their journey. Today you have been made ready for the next part of your life’s journey. The wind has returned to your sails.”
Carolyn immediately thought of the dream she had experienced weeks ago in which she and Jeff were sailing together off Angel Island. The wind filled the sails, and in her dream Jeff had laughed his best, free-spirited laugh. She almost felt as if she could hear the faint echo of his liberating laughter rolling from the courts of heaven as she left Lydia’s home. Carolyn no longer blamed God for the tragedy that had so altered her life. She knew Jeff was with the Lord. He was free.
And now so was she.