le petit bonheur

It's been a couple days. Big, productive, happy, sad, slap-happy, slightly sweaty days.

So you remember on the 14th, when I said, "Oh I hope our directors lighten up a tiny bit?" The next day, they didn't. It was one of the most difficult rehearsal days I think I have ever been through. Ever. However, it was a positive day, started at 10:05am with the same kickline 5 times in a row for a camera crew...I tried to keep count of how many more kicklines we did that day, but I think once I got to ten and it wasn't even 2 hours into the day, I just stopped counting. By four fifty, I don't think I had a single box accent, bell ring, jingle bell clump, jump split, myrtle turtle dove, shine out, or group A off the bus left in my soul. It was one of those days you feel proud to have survived.

Incredibly enough, the next day, they gave our aching legs a rest. It was a productive day without a single eye high kick! Imagine that?! A gift like that from the directors is a huge acknowledgment of our hard work. It doesn't happen often, so I was so thankful. On the rehearsal deck there are two large cardboard tubes opposite each other near where we enter & exit the stage that simulate the huge light towers that are on our actual stage. Keltie helped me climb into one. (I knew it was inevitable the moment I first laid eyes on them) I danced around, everyone laughed. The environment in rehearsal is so much more enjoyable when our directors are pleased with us. If we're doing our job properly & making them happy, rehearsals can be so much fun, but as soon as we being to slack, that goes right out the door. Way less fun.

Yesterday was our first full cast show run through!! I start to get excited when I see everything coming together. It doesn't seem that long ago, we were just getting here & learning our first numbers... Yesterday was also our first time dancing without having the mirrors to use as a crutch. We had to rely solely on our own retention of the choreography & feeling each other dance & breathe. It went really, really well!!! I made a couple silly mistakes, so did everyone, but the overall impression was that we're in a great place. We even got out five minutes early. Five minutes doesn't seem like much until you really think about how many eye high kicks you can fit into five minutes. We're going to be so prepared when we step onto our stage for the first time in Hershey, on Thursday. We're going to need it, teching a new show is a tedious process.

Needless to say, today was a perfect day for a day off. I went to a gospel brunch at the House of Blues with nine other Rockettes. I had such a wonderful time, I love being able to work & befriend such cool girls. We even sang "This Little Light of Mine" with the singer of the gospel band that was playing!! The past week definitely earned me a fun social outing with lots & lots of food. (ugh...so much delicious breakfast food...it's my favorite)

There were a couple days in the past week that I found I was really harping on myself, something I have been trying not to do. Old habits die hard. There have definitely been some tears, rehearsal is always a very exhausting process, no matter how many years I've been doing the show. (Merry Christmas meltdowns are perfectly normal) It's just a reality that comes with the job, but you have to remember, it's only a Christmas show. Friday I was dancing in a brown & golden bowler hat with light up reindeer antlers on it at eleven in the morning, after that, a giant orange wig with a big green bow, how seriously can I possibly take myself?

There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think

about tomorrow.

-Ardis Whitman

There were so many things to be happy about in the past seven days...A- Team hair bows. Lemon white chocolate chip cookies. Old friends. New books. Love beads. Nativity lanterns. Bad ass warm-up playlists. Starbucks green tea presents. Ugly E.T. cakes. Text messages from lovely people. Hair flowers. Screaming jump splits. Slap happy Rockettes. It's the little things people. The little things make life so much more fun, pay attention. They can save your life & your mood. Sometimes it's all you have & if you're too busy looking the other way, you're just going to be a big pile of cranky. There is something to be said for the simple things. Every day won't be good but there's something good in every day, even if it's simple as a red & green hair bow. I choose what holds value in my life, & I would much rather enjoy wearing my new A-Team hair bow (from our assistant dance captain's crafty momma) than be irritated because I didn't want to run box accents in Ragdolls again.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson

(from her book Return to Love)

I may not have it all figured out, (that's an understatement...I have no idea what I'm doing) but I'm fairly confident I have all of the pieces, I'm just slowly figuring out where each one fits...