It’s never too late is a series about people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.
Nancy Cardwell has made two major changes in her life. The first was to quit her job as the top editor of a New York newspaper to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The second was a bit more radical: moving to Buenos Aires at the age of 62 after falling in love with tango – and a tango dancer named Luis Gallardo.
Ms. Cardwell, now 75, joined The Wall Street Journal in 1969 and climbed through the ranks to become assistant editor-in-chief — and the highest-ranking woman on top at the time. But in the late ’80s, she was taken off the top as part of a wider reshuffle of top editorial positions and became 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 hot and under construction. “That’s it,” she said to herself. “I am gone.”
She sold her New York apartment and moved to Americus, Georgia (population 15,000), to work for Habitat for Humanity. “You’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession,” she recalled saying to herself. “You don’t have to prove anything. If you don’t want to do it anymore, don’t do it.”
She eventually moved back to the East Coast, settled in Arlington, Virginia, and began a career as a freelance book editor. When she was 58, a friend invited her to her tango event; she reluctantly went along. Within six months she was taking five tango lessons a week. She celebrated her 60th birthday with a trip to Buenos Aires, where she danced the tango and practiced Spanish. She returned again and again, each trip a little longer. She would hire a ‘taxi dancer’ – a professional tango dancer who would take her to milongas (literally ‘ballrooms’, although the term is now synonymous with tango halls) – and keep dancing until 3 a.m.
One night she was approached by Luis, who had already noticed her on the dance floor. They continued to meet and dance at various milongas until the end of her journey. He asked her to write to him (he had signed up for an email address 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 halfway through the dance when he told her, “I think you’re going to be one of the great loves of my life.” The following 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.
The following interview has been edited and shortened.
What is the special appeal of tango?
Tango is a lead and follow dance – it’s like a conversation. It’s more intimate than sexy. I started telling people long before I met Luis, “I get 90 percent of what I want from a guy on the dance floor.” Tango taught me that intimacy does not require duration. The length of a tango of three minutes is sufficient. Later I heard that the Argentines call the tango “el amor de tres minutos” (the love of three minutes).
What was it like being single before you met Luis?
You were raised thinking that you were going to be a couple or get married, but I just refused to accept that it wasn’t okay to be single. My mother actually taught me that happiness is an option and that you have to choose it. If you don’t like a situation, you either need to change the situation or you need to change how you feel about it, because going through life miserable just isn’t enough.
Have you thought long and hard about the decision to move to Argentina?
I guess the move wasn’t scary for me because it didn’t seem too bad. I had been visiting more and more and thought about settling there longer. But Luis made Buenos Aires my home. He gave me a circle of friends, family, a foothold in the tango community and an understanding of what it’s like to be an Argentine. Most importantly, he loved me and made me understand support and partnership in a way I had never experienced before.
What is the key to finding love?
We were both in a very good place when we met. I always tell people that I had never been happier than the day before I met him. Not that I’m any less happy now, but I wasn’t looking for anything. I don’t think romance and relationships always bring happiness, but happiness is what allows them to happen.
Do you think things would have been different if this had happened to you 10 years earlier or 10 years later??
I don’t think it would have made a difference. But I think the older you get, the more confident you become. Not because you get better at whatever you were doing, but you just care less about what other people think. For example, I speak fluent Spanish, but I make all kinds of mistakes. Now I know that my worth, my worth, who I am in the world, does not come from how well I speak Spanish. And that feeling gives you some freedom to reach out and do things that you might not have wanted to do as a younger person.
If you had a friend who came to you and said “I started tango, I traveled to Buenos Aires, I met this man, he thinks he is the best dancer in the world, I would go to Argentina move and with him?” what would you have said to her?
I would probably tell her to go for it. Being single has a downside. You miss having the family and partner, which are good things. I would have loved to have them, but I didn’t. But there’s an upside to being single, which means you can do anything you want to do. You don’t have to buy Reeboks for anyone. You don’t have to send anyone to Harvard. If you have the flip side, you might as well take the top.
