I Am the Glenwood Canyon Highway

One of these things is just like the other: The Glenwood Canyon Highway and One Happy Heart Dancing.

In the 1970s the Colorado highway department decided to rebuild the highway through Glenwood Canyon.

The river that cut the canyon still runs along its floor. It is narrow as rivers go, and happy-go-lucky. After miles and miles of majestic, barren sky and landscapes, relentless sun, the canyon is an oasis. Trees and grasses grow all along the banks, and there is shade. It is cozy down here by the water.

A two-lane highway runs along the edge of the river. It is impossible to drive it slowly enough. You don’t drive this canyon, you loll about in it.

Unless you are a trucker or a traveling salesmen or a parent with a carful of kids, all of whom have only one goal: Make good time.

These are the people the highway department had in mind when they decided to widen the road. They called it improving the highway. The environmentalists disagreed.

For decades, the environmentalists blocked the highway department’s every move. No plan was good enough. Real estate developers and trucking companies and everyone else who stood to make a penny off increasing the volume and speed of traffic through the canyon railed against the environmentalists. The greenies stood firm.

There was much screaming. Road-building costs skyrocketed while the environmentalists obstructed the developers’ plans. The developers took the case to the public: Look what this will do to your taxes! The environmentalists took their case public, too: Look what this will do to your pretty, beloved canyon!

Nothing good can come of this! both camps cried.

Eventually, the highway department scrapped its patchwork plans and proposed something brand new: an elevated highway. Now there would be no need to blast away the canyon walls, channel the river through enormous buried pipes, remove the tops of peaks, or move mountains.

They had everything they needed to make it happen: Lots of pillars and a brand-new technology that would allow the pillars to be set—and continue to stand—on mountain cliff walls for 100 years.

Voila!

Glenwood Canyon is not what it used to be, but to focus on that is to miss the miracle.

The miracle of the Glenwood Canyon highway is this: All that tussling, all those delays—inconvenient, messy, seemingly hopeless—created a space of time in which new capabilities could emerge, techniques could advance to such a degree that when builders and environmentalists finally came together, the resolution far surpassed what could have been accomplished had the project proceeded as planned.

Patience is a virtue. Persistence pays off.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Day After Festival Highlights

In the midst of a family party, my father and I compare notes on Grisha's music lecture/performance.

Your sister gave me a CD a while ago, he says. Guitar music. I used to listen to it, but it got boring. He ways this sheepishly, as if it's his fault.

I'm going to get it out and listen to it again, he says, see if I hear different things in it now.

Ultimate Highlight of the 2008 Denver Memorial Day Tango Festival

Exiting the festival’s last class, a radiant Janette announces to the world, “I love this dance!”

5 Highlights of the 2008 Denver Memorial Day Tango Festival

1. Skilled teachers, fabulous music, gorgeous dancing. Especially the last. It's impossible to get enough of the pure, greedy pleasure of enjoying the show, as participant, spectator or understudy.

2. Lovely dances with out-of-towners. Sonny, Lev, Homi, Mark, a guy from Boulder, which is not really out of town but what the heck. Women complain that the local leads don’t dance with local women during festival weekend. I'm with the guys on this one.

3. Tomas’s class for followers on finding your voice. Listening to the other women talk about the difficulties they’ve had with that, I am relieved not to have to deal with that on top of balance and coordination and everything else I’m trying to learn.

I have never not had a voice in the dance. Many of my struggles in tango are due to my very loud voice. When a teacher insists that I move in a certain way, I acquiesce for the space of time I am in their class. Then I go home or to a milonga and do it my way.

After Tomas’s class, though, I have to tone it down because I find myself contributing a little too much … er, shouting right over the leads. They let me play around, but I can see one old favorite is counting the minutes until this festival is over and I consider the possibility of occasionally following again.

4. Playing dress up. Friday night I wear the softest, sweetest dress I own. It is gold and pink, ultrasimple, ultralight silk--the ultimate party dress. Saturday afternoon, I need a shot of grrl power, so wear tight, low-riding black jeans with a distressed, tight-fitting black t-shirt. I have saw-blade earrings in my bag, but this outfit is so tough I don’t need them.

5. My dad at the final day of the festival. He is 10x more shy than I am, and just as curious and adventuresome. We sit in the second row at Grisha’s performance-lecture on musical traditions that contribute to tango music. He observes Brigitta’s class on tango landmarks—from the very farthest back corner of the room. He squirms as I introduce him to friends in the hallway. And, he meets festival organizer Tom Stermitz.

“You must learn tango,” Tom says. My father demurs. “You must,” Tom continues. “It’s a requirement for all men of international mystery and intrigue!”

My father—avid fan of international mystery and intrigue, avid admirer of clever turns of phrase—shyly smiles.

Dancing Scruffy Cheek-to-Scruffy Cheek

Brief ABC News report on gay and queer tango in Buenos Aires.

One Happy Heart Dancing

Patience is a virtue, the sister of Persistence. If this were 1700 New England, you would have girlfriends with such names.

I am both of those girlfriends.

Patience is meek and mild. Persistence is a pushy broad.

Patience lounges on the sofa eating bon-bons, allowing things to unfold. Persistence is always tinkering, coaxing the world to align with her stars. Both are relentlessly optimistic.

Patience is a virtue. Persistence pays off.

For months I have been persistently friendly to a lead I turned down for a dance in December 2006. I would love to dance with him—but no luck. He’s friendly right back, but no invitations to dance. I have been patiently waiting.

Until last night.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Festival Week Begins

Whoo-hoo!