Le Grand Continental – Pioneer Courthouse Square on Sept 30, 2012
Hello Fall! And what a wonderful start of a beautiful season it is! During the last week of September, I celebrated the Equinox at my new home in the west hills together with friends at an Autumn Lantern Garden party, and a toast to my husband Tim for his birthday. Then, as one of of 160 dancers, we performed Le Grand Continental at Pioneer Square last Sunday.
That’s Me in The Red Top – tucked between the two dancers in turquoise
Like so many of others – I have never danced like this before. 30 minutes of choreographed steps to a variety of songs, performed by individuals aged 10 years old to 74 years old. Something magical happened to all of us in the process. A photo exhibit of our journey is on display at the Living Room Real Estate office on NE Alberta, along with the question……
Why Do We Dance?
I pondered that question for myself; and found this quote – something that really 
struck a chord:
“We dance because it’s the fastest, most direct route to the truth — not some big truth that belongs to everybody, but the get down and personal kind, the what’s-happening-in-me-right-now kind of truth. This is not always easy for us to access — we have to navigate some very deep past, as well as the probable futures we drum up to feed the fear that drives us round the same circles, day in and day out. We dance to hook up to the true genius lurking behind all that bullshit — to seek refuge in our originality and our power to reinvent ourselves; to shed the past, forget the future and fall into the moment feet first. You remember being fifteen, possessed by the beat, by the thrill of music pumping loud enough to drown out everything you’d ever known. Of course you do.
We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst. The beat is a lover that never disappoints and, like all lovers, it demands 100% surrender. It has the power to seduce moves we couldn’t dream. It grabs us by the belly, turns us inside out and leaves us abruptly begging for more. The beat is bad, wicked, sick –whatever the word is now.
We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things, to wipe out memory or transform it into moves that nobody else can make because they didn’t live it. It’s a sacred thing, the beat. We love beats that move faster than we can think, beats that drive us ever deeper inside, that rock our worlds, break down walls and make us sweat our prayers.
We dance to survive and the beat offers a yellow brick road to make it through the chaos that is the tempo of our times. Chaos is the way of the mind when it is free-styling , winging its way back to an instinctive, intuitive intelligence, the kind we need to survive — not only the real shit going down, but the massive amount of stuff we insist on making up to insure our suffering. God provides, and god don’t need no help. God is the dance and the dance is the way to freedom and freedom is our holy work.
So get down and find out what your hands, your shoulders, your elbows, knees and, most importantly, your hips and feet have to say about it. There is a dance only you can do, that exists only in you, here and now, always changing, always true. Are you willing to listen with fascination? If you are, it will deliver you unto the self you have always dreamed you could be. This is a promise.”
~ Gabrielle Roth
A Unique Place of Understanding
This week is yet another milestone for me. October 10, 1972, was the first day of new job. I’d already been laid off from my first job, in mortgage banking, when the office closed in response to tough economic times. So when I arrived at work on this particular morning, only to find the doors locked. Making this week an anniversary of that experience that I would come to love – and hate. Mortgage lending made “sense” to me; I was good at math, story problems, and selling myself”. And alas, the doors were closed because it was Columbus Day. They’d forgotten to tell me when I got hired.
I left the industry once, in 1975, when “Reg Z – Truth in Lending” kicked in. Spent one year with the City and County of Denver, where I met my husband-to-be in the Budget Office. In 1976, when his brother died in an auto accident, we both quit our jobs, moved to Oregon, got married, and I returned to mortgage banking.
Reg Z continues to rule my world, and for the last 3 years, as the federal government ratcheted up the regulations, we have seen the most significant changes to Reg Z. I’m in a unique place of understanding the years of compliance build up, which helps consumers as we work an extremely tough environment of tight-tight-tight underwriting and compliance review during the loan process.
Ready for My Next Dance?
I’ve started rehearsal for the Thrill the World dance performance of Thriller on the weekend
just before Halloween, October 27 at OMSI.
Thrill The World is an annual worldwide attempt to break the Largest Simultaneous Dance with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Thousands of people in cities around the world will learn “Thriller,” dance and perform it together on the day that Thrill The World takes place.
The Portland Zombie Walk Will Occur After Our Performance
2007 marked the 25th anniversary of the release of the “Thriller” album. It is still a popular and well-known video that crosses boundaries of language, culture, and geography. We believe that this is largely due to the amazing choreography. Don’t think so? Do the “roar” move anywhere, at any point, and without fail someone will yell, “Thriller!” The movements are so iconic and easily recognizable.
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Have a Wonderful Fall Season!
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