Today I am so grateful. Do you have moments in your life where you look around and see how good everything is around you, and you’re so grateful it brings you to your knees? I am sitting right now… but thinking about all of this brings me to me knees. In my heart. Does anyone feel that?
There is so much to be grateful for when I look around. Grateful that I get the chance to AUDITION. Literally hundreds and hundreds of opportunities to pursue my craft are all around me every day. I am grateful for my teachers. I have found mentors here that I trust. That are experts in their field. That care about me and my specific path and my specific growth. For my tap teachers. (Hi Leslie and Patti!). For my voice teacher. Who has truly changed my life and helped me step into who I’m here to be. Grateful I got the chance to make a decision for my career last week, and that I will get more chances to make more decisions. For family VACA. And the feeling you get when you know you’re going to be going on vacation. That sweet image of pure bliss because vacation means rest and fun and party and break and love. Grateful for BABIES (other people’s). And new marriages of friends and family. And old ones.
For surprises! (I am on my way to surprising Joe for his closing show in Pennsylvania. He’s so fun to surprise. I might get more joy out of it than he does. Weeee!). Wait back up I’m grateful for Thanksgiving itself!!! For some new baking dishes that mean we will be cooking some goood food that day (And ordering some food.…really gonna rest this year). The thought of wine in a wine glass on Thanksgiving day. MY PARENTS COMING TO VISIT. The Macy’s day parade. (Although how da hell do I stream it live. This is a challenge every year. And I always end up going to someplace with cable. But that is not an option this year people so how do I get it on my tv in my living room? We have direct tv go or whatever it’s called. It always fails me). Anyways I AM grateful for the parade because it reminds me of growing up watching the parade. I have always watched the parade. But it still reminds of watching it at home when I was little. Getting so excited in the morning to watch all of the shows and learn about the new things that are on Broadway. And to see the stunning, stunning Rockettes. The Rockettes are Christmas to me. I love you Rockettes. Thank you for your Christmas magic. And for training so hard. To bring us Christmas magic.
I am grateful for the funny time on the train this week. The first stop we made a lady got on the train and her travel mug popped open and made a really loud popping sound and it startled me and some others around me. I jumped a little and so did she and then she said “sorry!” And then we both laughed. Then another kind of gruff-looking guy got on and he had a to-go coffee and a brown sack with breakfast food in it. He sat down and was enjoying his coffee. The train stopped suddenly and it slipped out of his hand and spilled onto the floor. I felt so bad for him. “That’s too bad, that is too bad” he said. And he apologized to the ladies sitting across from him for getting the floor wet. They did not mind. We all felt sorry for him for spilling his coffee he was so clearly loving. Coffee was not behaving today on the train. A homeless man comes on the train and begins asking for things. “Hey man, here,” says the coffee spilling man. I watch him hand over his brown paper bag. “ It’s an egg and sausage sandwich”. Whaaaaa?! Come on people! Is that not the best thing you’ve ever heard!? This man’s morning was already not going as planned- and what does he do? Give what he had left to someone less fortunate. People are good. They are good.
I am now sitting in a bar/pizza joint in Bristol, PA, waiting for Joe’s show to finish (Amazing pizza. Like so good. And gluten free available for a verrrrry low cost compared to NYC). And its very funny because I think I am the only one who came here alone and I keep feeling like I’m going to get in trouble for having my computer out. Like I’m cramping the vibe here. Haha. It is kind of delightful.
I was at whole foods earlier this week to buy a few high maintenance things for Thanksgiving #glutenfree #itsarealthing #carefoyobody. I was talking to the man at the meat counter and I asked him if he would have time to spend with his family on Thanksgiving this year. -I was also ordering meat. I didn’t just start this conversation out of the blue. But you never know I wouldn’t put it past me. I do have a soft spot for people working at the meat counter because my brother started working in the meat department at our grocery store and worked his way up to assistant manager. He’s a badass. So I ask the guy at the counter if he’ll have time at home and he said not much- it’s all hands on deck at whole foods on that day. (Because lots of people have ordered pre-cooked Turkeys that they will need to pick up. Including us for the first year ever). I told him I was so sorry and I hoped he got some time at home that day. He says “It’s okay, it’s 2018 people don’t spend time at home they go shopping.” He said it with a bit of sarcasm and light-heartedly. But he’s right… which lead me to thinking…Why do people stand in lines to buy things instead of giving thanks on Thanksgiving? It is like the exact opposite of gratitude. Instead of being grateful for what we have it is “I don’t have enough.”. Not that I blame anyone for shopping on black Friday… I mean those deals. I do blame you if you go get in line ON THANKSGIVING DAY. DON’T DO THAT. How did this happen? Even black friday? How did we as a culture go from giving thanks one day to buying as much as we possibly can the next day? It’s pretty comically ironic you have to admit.
I was listening to a Super-soul Sunday podcast where Oprah interviewed Shawn Achor- who is a happiness researcher and has published awesome books. Oprah said something that has stuck with me, but I think I have forgotten as of late. She said that gratitude “changes our vibrational frequency in the world”. It literally changes the energy you are putting out into the world. And I do believe it makes you more magnetic, ironically drawing more things and people and opportunities in. And in a city where human energy is everywhere you turn, I believe tuning your vibrational frequency to gratitude can be even more impactful than in other places I have lived. It is contagious. I set a goal a few years back for myself to do a year of gratitude- where every single day I would write down three new things I was grateful for that day. It was a good challenge for myself and I definitely learned- because some days it was HARD. To be grateful. Looking back I can see that writing gratitudes is a great tool- to snap your mind out of a funk. But it isn’t the same as shifting your heart to gratitude. To truly looking around and realizing that everything around us is a blessing. That we are lucky to be alive. That we are lucky to have a life and to have choice. This shift I believe is truly transformative for you and for the people around you. Spread the gratitude. Lean into the joy. And I will try to do the same.
Grateful for my tribe and my family. Missing you Jackson. And Chris and Samuel.