Love Note to Craig

Those of you who know my husband need no explanation for this to be funny: He is now the faculty advisor for the Argentine Tango club on campus.

For those of you who do not have the pleasure of Craig's acquaintance, this picture should suffice.

Craig is an introverted, gruff, animal-shooting, hairy, sarcastic mathematician. But he is also a man with a well of kindness underneath it all. So when his colleague asked Craig if he could be the faculty advisor for this tango group, Craig couldn't say no. He told me that he made it very clear that he would not, under any circumstances, be doing any tango.

Craig's colleague, however, does not speak English very well. And Craig is sometimes--how shall I say it?--less gruff than he aspires to be. So I got a phone call on Friday from this professor, asking when we would be attending Tango lessons.

"Craig?" I asked in shock.

"You and Craig, I was assuming," said Craig's colleague.

"Well, we don't have a babysitter for the kids so I'm not sure," I stalled, not sure what Craig had said to him. Maybe Craig hadn't said no firmly enough, or had given the stock answer of, "I'll have to talk to my wife."

"I know," the professor offered helpfully, "You could come on Saturday nights, and Craig could come on Sunday nights! We are short a man on Sunday nights, and besides, learning to dance is kind of like learning a language."

At this point, I started to discreetly giggle, but the man went on. "If you learn while dancing together, you will only be able to speak the language of dance to one another. If you learn individually, when you come together in the tango it will be that much better."

"Well, yes," I said, "I'll mention that to Craig." I had some idea of what Craig might say if I used this as an argument in trying to convince him to tango. You see, there is some small possibility that I might be able to convince Craig to tango with me, but without me? Not a chance.

After I got off the phone, Luke asked, "Mom, what is the tango?" So we looked it up on YouTube. Not just tango, but Argentine tango. I wanted to know precisely what it was that my husband might be doing. I can't describe this dance very well in words, but let's just say that I'm still laughing, two days later, as I imagine Craig performing it.

But, really, I will have to discuss it with him more. Maybe he wants to dance. Craig has whole worlds inside of his head, of which I'm only acquainted with bits and pieces. When you look at his beard, hear him speak, you might not imagine that he was the guy in high school that danced with the awkward chubby girls in Russian class folk dance practice that everyone else avoided.

But he was that guy. And he danced well, and with joy. Oh, he'll mock me endlessly for writing this. He'll laugh at me in his sarcastic way and go down to his workshop to hammer something. But I know there is a tango going on somewhere inside of his head.