I was standing in line at one of my banks. (I have several bank accounts, each with its benefit, and this one has the benefit of letting me count my 2,000 quarters for free.) There's is only one line now, and the bank is still open, and it will remain open until 8PM on this evening before Thanksgiving. I look around me and I see faces with stories.
But this isn't a fiction about my imagining stories based on the faces I saw tonight. It's a non-fiction night. I saw these faces, tired ones on the two employees behind the counter, frustrated one on the customer being served, and tired and frustrated one on the one behind her and right in front of me. Then at that point two men entered. I didn't know until they started speaking, or at least one of them.
No, this isn't a story about a bank robbery; it would no longer be a non-fiction night. The man speaking drew my attention. I looked and saw two men standing in front of the third employee of the bank, sitting at the far end of the large hall that is this bank, a hall that used to be an outdoors shop that had moved down a few blocks. The man speaking had a very friendly tone. He shook hands with the lady who didn't get up but expressed her joy of seeing what appeared to be a well-known customer. The man explained to his friend that the smiling lady also spoke "Español". The "friend" was a young man, as opposed to the older man speaking fluent English, who seemed to be in his late forties. The younger man was wearing just a sweatshirt and jeans, jeans that had dirt on it, as if he had been painting a house recently. He looked obviously Hispanic. I am not going into details on what they were doing there, even though I was half-eaves dropping while waiting in the very slow line. The point is that the young man's immigration background is questionable but his friend obviously wanted to work something out for his financial background. Maybe open up a bank account for him? Not sure. I couldn't really see the young man's face, but he seemed very humble and yet his overall attire implied a very hard working man. He very well might fall into the category of a very hard working young man trying to start a life, or persevere in a life, during these hard economic times. I heard the word "Kentucky" and wondered if he had started his life there and moved up North. I wondered about his dreams.
The first woman was now writing something. Her frustration remained. She was trying to work something out with her money. She finished and waited for the woman who was behind her to finish her transaction. She looked at me and smiled a courteous smile and then looked away. I looked away too. But I wondered if she was trying to scrape by. Her hat, her cheap-looking clothes, the way she didn't care to take care of it, her lack of any makeup, her aging face, all made me wonder, how is she doing? Where are her dreams?
My dreams? Certainly not the reason I have come. I came with nearly 2,000 quarters and I am standing here the night before Thanksgiving waiting to deposit the slip that the counting machine spat out. This isn't a non-fiction about my dreams. Those will take a bit of imagination just to describe. While I was standing there in this hall of personal finances where an obvious attempt is made to bring some warmth to the brutishness of money and numbers, I thought about other people with dreams. Since tango songs are nearly constantly beating my head, I thought about tango people, and one of the most intriguing thing I have experienced is tango teachers. Why are they teaching tango?
There's some glamor to what they do, I suppose, but not the popular kind, just within the tango community, and most of these teachers are only known by a small fraction, whether that fraction is important or not is a different story but it's a fraction. And it's not for the money. Even the best tango teachers from Argentina at best stay in decent hotels but most teachers just crash someone's house, usually apartment of an adoring fan. Last Saturday I took my first private lesson from a tango teacher. She's an example of some of the sacrifices teachers make to be teachers, though she would tell you that it's not a sacrifice. She was an architect until just under a year ago. She studied a lot, obviously, and had worked a while as an architect, and eventually winding up in New York City. That's no minor accomplishment. But then a few years ago the tango bug bit her and she started dancing, then started teaching part time. And then less than a year ago, she abandoned architecture completely.
I wonder what she told the architecture firm.
"I want to follow my dreams"?
That's what she told me. By being a tango teacher she is pursuing her dream. It's like falling in love, she said; there's no reason, and probably it's unwise, but she said she's the type of person who would rather regret having done something than regret not having tried. And when you can't make a decision between these two regrets, you follow your heart, I guess. That Saturday when I showed up she seemed tired. Or maybe she was a little nervous with me, the first time we had a lesson together. She's usually very joyful, smiling, a genuine smile that you can't fake. And she's extremely friendly. All her joy can't be around all the time. Or maybe I was nervous. I don't think she makes a lot of money giving private lessons; it's more from giving classes in various studios in New York. She also sells tango shoes for a friend who gives her a commission for the shoes. She lugs her suitcase full of beautiful lady's tango shoes around town. I doubt she makes tremendous amount of money from that. Tango teachers have to fly to a lot of places, it's a very stressful job especially when you become famous and everyone wants you to teach.
I know a teacher who, from rumors and her own biography online, was given a tenure track position at MIT only to reject it in order to become a full time tango teacher. Sure, she gets to travel around with her husband teaching tango and meeting a lot of different people. But is that what drives them? I know another case of a woman who went through very tough experience as a graduate student and then a postdoc, and when that was over, she just decided to dance tango and then teach it.
The lady told me that I have saved up a lot of quarters. I nodded and smiled. She didn't know that I didn't save any up. They were accumulating from my washers and dryers that my tenants use. I finally got my butt up and deposited the quarters. Nothing motivated me, certainly not some dream.
It's so scary to follow your dreams. But then often when you actually do it, it's not as scary as it seems. Except when you are alone, when you feel you're by yourself at this junction in your path to realizing your dream, that's when doubt and fear hover like vultures over your dying believes.
I walked across the empty street to my car, many pounds lighter now. And I thought about the last words that ex-architect told me. "While I still love to design, I guess I am in love with something else now. Maybe I am betraying my first love. But I don't think that life is about one single love that you pursue." So we are allowed more than one dream. But many of us don't even follow our first dream.
