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A week ago, on a Monday, I was sitting on the front steps of the apartment building next to the one where I slept for four weeks. I was waiting for the taxi to come and pick me up to go to the airport. The super's wife came to check the studio, and all she did was to make sure the TV and the heater were working. No problem. I got my $250 back. That's two pairs of comme il faut shoes, I thought.

It was over. No more hot just-out-of-the-oven media lunas, no more cheap and great steak, no more many things, like the dog poo that was littered on the sidewalk in front of me.

There would be a bit more Spanish. The taxi ride encountered a major traffic jam caused by some traffic accident, and during that one-hour trip I got to chat a little with the taxi driver. But that was it.

A reverse culture shock, I was warned.

Yes, for a few days I found myself wanting to kiss the cheeks of men as well as women when I met them. I had to hold myself back. I also had to get used to, again, the pointedly more reserved attitude of people here in the US. Handshakes seem like a luxury in a culture where handwaving with a "hi, how are you doing?" is the norm.

The same weekend of the week I returned I found myself dancing to a tango "marathon", 48 hours of dancing, nonstop. Of course, I didn't dance all 48 hours. But I did dance more intensely and more frequently than I did in Buenos Aires. In fact, I had nearly all amazing dances, something that was hard to come by down there.

While my skill and overall level of dancing probably have increased somewhat, I think what contributed most to my getting great dances was my show of confidence. It came naturally to me now. In tango, especially for men, confidence plays a big role in forging a connection before two people even touch each other, perhaps even before they notice each other. In a way, it's just like in real life. The communication between two people, whether for dating or for a job interview, starts before the eyes make direct contact. This weekend of marathon I decided to wear things that were not so ordinary. I decided to wear my India shirts, but then on the first full day, when I realized I had no casual things to wear and so I had to wear my T-shirt that was really my pajamas, I wore that T-shirt with a lot of confidence. I was being me, I felt, and that was all that mattered.

I was still shy, of course; nothing in life is day and night unless we have something traumatic happening. I still felt the nervousness of asking someone to dance, that creeping voice of "she might say 'No'" was still chiming, though quietly. But overall, I felt I didn't really care much about the possible rejection. I recognized a lot of faces, and even those that have never seen me before smiled at me. For the first time in a milonga outside my little city, I felt happy and felt my happy energy spreading in the room.

Why did that happen?

Oh, I miss Buenos Aires.

Why did the confidence thing happen?

Not because I thought people would care that I came back from Buenos Aires. Most people I danced with didn't know and I didn't tell them in the beginning of the dance.

I guess after four weeks of dancing I made a connection, not with the dance or the people, but with the social dance of tango, the whole of it, its entirety. I felt finally I could speak its language, I could get along with it. It's strange to say this and it's difficult to describe it. I felt finally there's some harmony between me and this difficult dance.

And to slowly realize this means I slowly began to miss Buenos Aires. I am not sure if there's anything specific. I don't particularly miss the dancing. Or even the elements of the city I have mentioned I had felt connected to: the architecture, the people, the culture, the food. No, nothing specific. It's the memory of a good time that is tugging my sleeves, so to speak. Unlike India I had no traumatic experience, but I had a different one, one that is equally slow in imbuing thoughts and revelations in my veins. And there's a strong desire to go back, not to any place specific, but to see a friend I had only started to get to know.

I don't know when that will be again. My life is full of many other things, and tango happens to be the biggest part, but not the majority part. If I go back, I will have to be doing something else, something else that occupies my time even more. Perhaps when my life takes a major step, I will find myself in the familiar streets of that wonderful city.