it's christmas.

      These are the moments when I need to remind myself: this is what I wanted. When I need to look back to the auditions in the city, the thrill of being asked to stay to sing, to come back and dance some more, to read lines; the thrill of realizing that someone who works on Broadway shows is interested in me, sees potential in me. 

      Because on a Monday night, while doing the ninth show in a row, and after a five show weekend...well, let's just say it's easy to forget all that. And when it's three days before Christmas and you find yourself squeezed into a leotard and looking out into an audience that hosts a woman in the front row who is keeled over and literally looks like she might be meeting her Maker at that very moment, those desperate feelings of giving anything to get the job seem very distant.  

   But still, this is what I wanted. 

   And it still is, it's just everybody else seems to be on break...And I am working. Doing a job that I love, that I am absolutely grateful to have in a time when 13 shows are closing on Broadway around the 1st of the new year, but still, it's work.   

    And it's Christmas time. And I don't just know this because I received a black sturdy umbrella with the A Chorus Line logo on it from our producer today, or that my Secret Santa gifted me yesterday with a smaller, sleeker female shark to hang out in my dressing room with Bruce; no, it's more than that. It's Christmas in people's hearts, I think. 

  I know I felt it when, the other night, I walked up to the parking garage to pay the fee, and was surprised when it jumped from the normal six dollars that I was used to paying, to a hefty twenty-one dollars. They only took cash, and I only had a twenty, so I went up to the attendant and, explaining that I was one dollar short, asked him where the nearest ATM was. He told me, and I turned to walk out of the garage but was stopped by another man in the process of paying his fee. Wait, he said. Since wandering Philly's streets at one in the morning while looking for cash was not my idea of a great time, I was happy to oblige. He went on, You're only a dollar short? Well, here. And with that, he pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to me, decidedly transforming into an angel, my angel, before my eyes. It's Christmas, he said, and abruptly turned back around while I was left thanking him profusely.  

   Gosh darn it, it is Christmas.  And I want to spread that kind of Christmas hope and help just like he did.  So, let's all try to pay it forward, in honor of Christmas and all. I know we can't ever pay God back for His Gift to us, but hey--we can spend a pretty amazing lifetime giving gifts to others because of it.

 And really, it can be as small as a dollar bill in a parking garage.