Nancy Cardwell has made two big changes in her life. The first was quitting her job as a top-tier newspaper editor in New York to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The second was a bit more drastic: moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the age of 62 after falling in love with tango — and a tango dancer by the name of Luis Gallardo.
Now 75, Cardwell started at The Wall Street Journal in 1969 and rose through the ranks to become an assistant managing editor — and the highest-ranking woman on the masthead at the time. But in the late ’80s, she was dropped from the masthead as part of a broader reshuffling of top editorial positions and found herself frustrated.
She was returning from a fishing trip in Montana in 1991 when she got off the plane at La Guardia Airport, which was sweltering and under construction. “That’s it,” she recalled saying to herself. “I’m out of here.”
She sold her New York apartment and moved to Americus, Georgia (population 15,000), to work for Habitat for Humanity. “You’ve reached the top of your profession,” she remembered telling herself. “You don’t have to prove anything else. If you don’t want to do it anymore, don’t do it.”
She eventually moved back to the East Coast, settling in Arlington, Virginia, and started a career as a freelance book editor. When she was 58, a friend invited her tango event; she reluctantly went along. Within six months, she was taking five tango classes a week. She celebrated her 60th birthday with a trip to Buenos Aires, where she danced tango and practiced Spanish. She returned again and again, each trip a little longer. She would hire a “taxi dancer” — a pro tango dancer who took her to milongas (literally “ballrooms,” although now the term is synonymous with tango halls) — and stay out dancing until 3 a.m.
One night, she was approached by Gallardo, whom she had already noticed on the dance floor. They continued to meet and dance at various milongas until the end of her trip. He asked her to write to him (he had signed up for an email address just to correspond with her), and one day, she got a message asking when she would be coming back to Argentina. She returned in November, and they were mid-dance when he said to her, “I think you’re going to be one of the great loves of my life.” The next year, she moved to Argentina. They married in 2014 and now split their time between Arlington and Buenos Aires.
They still dance tango at least three times a week.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
