It’s an amazing sight.
Aida and I walk along the sidewalk of Ocean Front Walk in Santa Monica, with the Pacific Ocean as if in grabbing distance on our left side, and I cannot help but notice how we end up dancing with each person who ventures into our vicinity.
You see, we walk lost in conversation, wondering whether we are violating the law by remaining on the paved path and not stepping onto the sand since the beach is closed, when we sense a body moving toward us. It’s a woman wearing black tights, a University of Arizona shirt, what appear to be airpods in her ears (one of two ways to explain that she seems to be talking to herself), and a blueish-white mask, walking toward us on an almost head-on collision course. Barely have we approached each other, when we simultaneously enter into a cryptic dance – the Coronawaltz. Establishing eye contact or not even, as we get nearer and nearer and just near enough, she starts maneuvering to her right, and we start maneuvering to our right, as if repelling one another while remaining gravitated toward the center of the walkway. The closer we get to each other, the more toward the right we swerve, until finally our parabola path has reached its apex – we have ventured farthest away from our original trajectory – when we are immediately next to one another: she to our left, we to her left, both of us proceeding forward but in opposite directions. We are oblivious of one another during this entire motion of separation, but it only seems so; we may or may not have made eye contact at the beginning of this ritual, and if so, only for a vanishing moment. Having passed the climax, we each gradually roll back into our initial paths, making sure that this movement is smooth and not abrupt, as if wishing to maintain social distance even behind our backs.
The cycle ends when each returns to her or his original path and continues walking straight. The Coronawaltz is concluded with this partner, and each of us glides forward until she or he meets the next unassuming yet fully prepared dance partner.
I glance to my sides – the occasional human wandering by on a bicycle, or rollerblades, or a skateboard, or simply on one’s two legs – each perfectly set apart from one another, each navigating one’s way in relation to each other person within a twenty-feet radius or so, smoothly rolling to the opposite side as soon as a fellow human comes within sneezing distance: an action reciprocated instantly by this innocent trespasser, as if rehearsed.
Within a few moments, the cycle ends yet again, with a sure promise to be repeated multiple times in subconscious acquiescence. Humans have turned into atoms — ions, really — repelling one another like particles of the same electric charge, whereas couples have turned into molecules, as if bound by a magnetic bond of opposite charges.
Walking back to the car, we pass a young man with blonde hair, knocked out asleep on a public bench with a “U” tattooed on the middle finger of his left hand, which lies idly on his stomach and goes up and down each time he inhales and he exhales. As we approach him, I can feel myself nudging Aida toward the other side, away from the bench, as if being pushed aside by the same magnetic charge.
Apparently, it doesn’t take two to do this particular tango.
Chronicles 