For the Love of a Sock

Jan 8, 2021: The day I fell in love with a sock. Not just any sock mind you. A blue, woollen, ribbed sock.

Some context: It was a cold COVID winter day. All the world was a little off-kilter. No normal. Everything was skewed. Even my brain apparently.

A real estate agent was coming over to assess the sale value of my house. The doorbell buzzed. After a brief greeting, she stepped inside and took off her boot. 

It all happened so quickly. There it was. A dark blue woollen sock, covering her left foot. Love at first sight!

Not exactly Harlequin romance. Nonetheless, the image of that blue woollen socked foot kept replaying in my mind for several days, accompanied by all the warm fuzzy feelings that one might expect from a wool sock, just not on someone else’s foot! 

A fetish? Perhaps, or alternatively, it was not the socked foot that captivated my heart, but the person to whom it was attached. 

Head or Heart?

Whom do I believe, my head or my heart?

Consider: This was a somewhat tense situation – an unknown entering my personal space to determine the sale value of my house, with the buyer present. High stakes. Potentially problematic. This could easily go sideways and cost me tens of thousands of dollars. Except from her very first words I sensed her to be a polished professional who would make this a pleasant experience. 

My heart instantly intuited a positive interaction and embraced her, metaphorically speaking. My head meanwhile was scrambled, trying to resolve up all the itemized concerns identified prior to our meeting. 

The big question.

How could I be so conflicted on a head level but comfortable and trusting of this person on a heart level? 

My head defaulted to a familiar pattern. It needed something concrete, some visual assurance to assuage its anxiety and justify this instant, irrational attraction. It attempted to attach my intuitive response to a visual clue. Given this season of COVID masks and winter apparel – toques, scarves, coats, boots, i.e, virtually no personal identifiers at all – a blue woollen socked foot was all it could come up with. Really.

The dance of the Neandrathal

Does this sound weird? Sure. But not out-of-the-ordinary. Just out-of-order.

What typically happens? 

Usually, we have sufficient setup time to scope someone out from a distance and formulate a judgement, before we risk opening our heart to up-close and personal. The dynamic duo of head/ eye assumes the role of protecting us from a problematic encounter.

This makes perfect sense if we look back a bit at our evolutionary development. As hunter-gatherers we could look out across the plain and determine very quickly from a distance whether whatever was approaching was predator or prey. Then we would quickly jump into appropriate action.

Times have changed but apparently, we have not (yes, men can still be a very primitive species). We remain habituated to employing the same technique in approaching most of life’s circumstances, including social engagements. We judge visually from a distance to assess whether we are entering a comfort or conflict situation, whether we are about to encounter predator or prey, ball-breaker or ball-acher. 

The long-distance dance.

Let’s take this to the dance floor where we are looking to hook up. We peer out across the crowded room, trying to assess from afar whether someone will make a good match for a dance or if possibly even an after-dance liaison. 

In the Tango, the cabeceo y mirada (visual call and response) is a perfect example of this process – a ritualized exchange across the dance floor of eye contact and head nods to screen interest in dancing. This is a very convenient convention that precludes people from having to crisscross the floor to invite someone to dance and then, potentially, face the humiliation of returning to one’s seat empty-handed. 

But can we assess the desirability or suitability of a dance partner from a distance? Very sketchy business. 

What happens, often as not, is that we look for the visuals that we can accurately assess in this manner, eg., age, dress, attractiveness, basic predator-prey data. The stodgy, balding, milonguero (that would be me) picks out the beautiful young novice dancer. The middle-aged woman puts hours into appearance and presentation hoping to arouse the curiosity of a prospective dance partner.

Our heart’s desire.

Is this the level of connection that we are really seeking in our dance? Someone who looks good from a distance? 

Here is the glitch. We cannot judge the foot by the sock. Whatever the favourable logistics of scoping out a potential dance partner from across a large and crowded dance venue, it starts off the dance on the wrong foot: we are judging a desirable dance partner by appearances rather than welcoming them with our heart in non-judgmental acceptance. 

One of the advantages – and delights – of belonging to a small intimate dance community, (Check us out at Naked Cafe, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. No, not really naked.), is everyone knows everyone and most everyone dances with most everyone most every night. There is no anxiety about “will he or won’t she?” or “will I return to my seat embarrassed?” or, “will I go home without having danced at all”. There is real comfort in this, not to mention a whole lot of pleasure. We can come to the dance with an open heart and leave with a full heart. Guaranteed.

Head vs. heart.

Is this a real thing? Is there head knowledge and heart knowledge and can they sometimes disagree?

Absolutely. It has been known for millennia to wisdom traditions and currently validated by modern neuroscience. There are three main knowledge centres in our mind-body:  the head, the heart and the body/gut. Each has its own way of knowing and its own distinctive contribution to mind. 

The head is rational, logical and dualistic. It dissects and differentiates and analyses. It is great at making the kind of two-dimensional judgements that we spoke of above, whether across an empty plain or a crowded dance floor. 

The heart is the organ of connection, relationship, and inclusion. It engages through the filter of mutuality and intuition. To be clear, we are not talking about the heart as a mushy cesspool of sentimentality. (Emotionality, according to traditional wisdom is the property of the liver, not the heart.) The function of the heart is resonance, providing an inner expansiveness great enough to enfold the other in safety and belonging. When someone welcomes us into their generous, loving heart space, we instantly feel safe, secure and at home. 

This head vs. heart tension was precisely the dynamic that was playing itself out in the blue woollen sock affair. I was inviting – literally – the socked foot and the person attached into my house. I had opened the door to my home and my heart, not in a romantic gesture but in an act of mutuality and respect, a very personal and generous act of acceptance and approval. To my head this seemed very presumptuous and irresponsible without concrete assurances, like would she back me in negotiating or, at very least, was she young and pretty? Not a clue. But hey, a slender foot in a blue sock! 

Dancing from the heart.

There is a big difference between dancing from your head and from your heart. In the first we stay in judgement mode, separated from melding with our partner by our preoccupation with the sophistication of our dance. In heart mode, we allow ourselves to fold into each other so that we move in complementarity with a mutually infused co-creativity.

In dance, as in all other aspects of relating, if we want to make a connection we need to make a conscious shift from our head to our heart, from visual judging to intuitive acceptance. 

This is not an easy or automatic transition. To open at a heart level is a rigorous discipline that requires the posture of non-judgement, vulnerability, acceptance, trust, curiosity, gentleness and much more.  But to neglect to do so eliminates the possibility of experiencing the inner dance, the one in which you feel as if the two of you are moving as one with the music.  

Warm, woollen fuzzies.

I have often shared my experience of how an open accepting, non-judgemental heart on the part of the lead provides encouragement and comfort even for a completely novice dancer. Recently, I came across a fascinating account of the same dynamic from the perspective of the follow, in a podcast interview of Ieva Kelpsaite by Joe Yang. (Check out Joe’s Tango Podcast, an entertaining and educational exploration of the world of Tango.) 

Ieva, a relationship coach and Tango teacher, shared a seminal experience on the dance floor. She was attending a milonga with a group of friends who knew nothing of Tango but were accompanying her out of curiosity. Ieva coaxed one of them onto the dance floor to attempt a few simple steps. She assured him that he was the lead and that she would follow whatever he led and that it would be fine. The first few moments were awkward, however, with her assurances and non-judgemental openness, he soon settled into actually leading, including some quite difficult steps. 

Ieva comments; “It did not feel at all like I was dancing with a beginner. I had not explained anything to him and yet he was able to lead me. I really enjoyed the dance.”  

After his first success, her friend gained enough confidence to invite another lady to dance. This time nothing worked. His new partner had an entirely different attitude and it bled into the dance. She was dancing from a head space of judgement rather than a heart space of welcoming acceptance (my terms).  

Ieva’s assessment of the experience; “This is an example of how the mind can influence what we can and can’t do. We can help someone feel confident, convince them they have the potential to do something they never thought they could do. This is a gift that we can offer.”

An excellent summation.

Much more about the difference between head and heart knowing coming up in future blogs. Thanks for tuning in. Also, give me some warm woollen fuzzies by liking this blog and subscribing. Hang in there until we dance again.