A day in the life...some photos

We spend so much time back stage.  There are a total of five singers in the show.  5 guys and five girls.  In the picture are Lateefah and Jeremy waiting for their shift.  

Here is the front of the Broadway Theater 

Last looks after one of the costume changes.  There is a hair and make up dept and a costume department there to help perfect the Disney "look"

On my days off I sometimes ride my bike to the bay and ride along the water.  Nice and peaceful here.  

Home is where the heart is.

Life is not about where you are.  

I grew up in Willingboro, NJ a suburb about 25 minutes north of Philadelphia and I couldn't wait until I was old enough to get out of the house.  I thought I knew everything and my parents knew nothing.  College for me was more about escaping from my parents than about getting an education.  But an education was what I got.  I was almost raped about 3 times during my 4-year college experience.  Talk about sheltered.  

I thought I knew everything and my parents knew nothing.  After graduation I joined Up With People for a fantastic life-changing but painfully lonely year.  I traveled the world and lived out of my suitcase.  My home being the 80 cities throughout the 13 countries I visited as a cast member and soloist.  As a young adult with my life ahead of me, I took life and every opportunity that came before me for granted.  I lived at home with my parents upon returning from my journey for only 3 months and I couldn't stand it.  I moved to Philly and on my own got myself into more trouble than I can tell in a short paragraph.  I was taken advantage of and betrayed in such a profound way that I am still healing from the pain that my blind trust inflicted on my "divine being having a human experience".  Don't get me wrong I grew as a person and did amazing things.  I started my acting/singing career.  Helped found a non-profit that traveled with kids to Africa and Europe.  I was the Program and Creative Director of this program and literally changed the course of about 30 kids per year's life.  But I had to get out of Philadelphia and to get away from all the dysfunction that my running from my family had created.  It was time for me, time to finally forge my own way so 'California here i come!'   

California was where my father died and I was robbed at gun-point.  My father didn't physically die in California but I was living in California when he died.  I was heart broken, my family- that I ran from- was now missing a significant player and he would never return.  In California I also got a MA in Spiritual Psychology and finally premiered my one-woman show "A Song for my Father". But I still felt cornered and smothered and nothing was happening the way I had hoped.  Everything, though rich with wonderful was costing me a bit of myself.  The opportunity to come to Japan happened upon my path.  Again, I jumped at the opportunity to venture out to new territory.  I needed to get away.  

All of this has taught me that the one common denominator in my life has been and will always be me.  I have been with me from NJ, to Philly, to Africa, Europe and now Asia and that something that is eating away is coming more from me than from outside of me.  What is it?

A lot of people are so in awe of my travels, my life and my fearlessness to step into the world at large and I don't want to minimize anything that I have accomplished or experienced.  I have had a rich and wonderful life so far and hope that it deepens in richness and wonder.  I intend for that to happen.  But I to stand in awe of my friends and family who have chosen to stick close to home or what they know, of their ability to take root somewhere and build something.  Both have their ups and downs and both have their sacrifices.  You loose something in all of it and you gain something no matter the side of the fence you choose.  I am not in the lives of my nephews or my family or friends in the way my heart aches for me to be.  I have missed weddings, funerals, births and milestone events.  I do not have a husband or children to call my own.  My "home" is wherever I make one to lay my head.   Yet I am a global citizen.  I see the similarities that we as humans have no matter the shape, size color, culture or ethnic group we come in.  I can feel at "home" no matter where I am in the world.  I belong every where that I am in the world.  I get to witness humanity in all its forms.  I am lucky in this.  

Here in Japan, in the buzz and murmur where I  don't know what the news, radio, conversation on the train or around me means, I really am in a bubble.  Words have no weight on me and I like it.  Words are used to order food, get directions in the subway but other than that I am ignorant-- and it is bliss.  I don't have to carry the burden of this culture.  But still I feel the pressure of life ebbing down on me.  I must do something, I am supposed to be doing something.  It dawned on me today that while I am pushing myself to do something to be something that maybe just once in my life I should relish in just being me.  Pause in the now of life and give thanks.  What would happen in my life if I took all the external pressures away and just was... well... me?  

What am I running from, or to?  Do I need to know?  Must I put myself under pressure once again to figure things out or should I just be?  I can afford to just be present in the moment for once in my life.  I don't have a husband that I have to rush home and cook dinner for, no children pulling on me as if my body is no longer my own, no one demanding much except that I show up 5 days a week to do what I love; dress up and sing.  Why am I still unhappy in this?  Can I just live in this space and just be for a little while?  Can I allow myself the luxury of watching whatever I want on TV?  Not having to share my space or time or attention with or on anyone but myself?  And why is this so difficult for me?  Why is the green always greener on the other side of the fence?  Just something to ponder.  

Today on the train I was watching on old podcast of the TODAY show they said that the earth could be swallowed up in a black hole.  I felt the fear and panic of all the things I haven't done in life, all that I would loose.  I was reminded of something my mother once said, 'I only focus on the bad things in my life'.  For once I will stop and smell the roses.  Or the cherry blossoms.  

Outside of my window I can understand something.  Loud, very loud Karaoke, amidst children yelling.  Children sound the same no matter the language.  Someone is singing, "We Are The Champions"  off key.  

IT'S TIME

Last week I bought a bicycle and little by little I think I am ready.  I am ready to experience Japan!!!!  It's time.  It is time to explore and see and feel what it's like to be in Japan.  I am ready to leave the comfort zone just a bit.  I think my first stop may be Osakusa or is it Osakasa?  Not sure but I will find out before I get there.  It is a little under an hour away and I think I am ready.  The hum drum of being around so many Americans has taken its final toll.  It is so easy to come to Japan and never leave the US.  I went to Bubba Gumps last weekend.  You can spend a lifetime here and never really be here.   It is time to explore and see cultural differences more and find out what this beautiful and vastly different culture is all about.  I am used to the random stares but know they will grow in intensity and number as I venture away from the city.  They challenge is I have only two days off a week and they are not together.  I will start out with day trips and then see what happens from there.  Yippeeeee!!

Throat Update

Well it ain't grand I tell ya.  My throat hurts.  Things in the dressing room are less than optimal and I hate blogging when all is not grand and wonderful.  Well, you want a full experience of my full experience and this is it.  Welcome.  I went to the doctor, AGAIN, on Friday and before I left the office was calling to see if I could come in because one of the girls in the show hurt her foot somehow.  After some back and forth (there are serious details in this but I'm not sure if I should post it here) I went in and was warmly welcomed by all but one of my cast mates.  I can read energy very well.  

The doctor gave me the option to have surgery, NO! Deal with it or spend money for an inebulizer and to be very careful.  So I am singing in a very different way.  This is a bit of a blessing in disguise.  One of my creative goals was to really stretch myself and to move out of my creative comfort zone so that I could grow musically.  Many years ago a voice teacher tried to convince me that I was not an alto but a lyric soprano.  Now this is hilarious to me because I have, on more than one occasion, been called "Sir" by a telemarketer or bill collector.  With this injury I am forced to sing from a lighter more vulnerable place.  From the warm-ups and work I have been doing I have found a new sound.  Amazing, and a silver lining in all of this.  

Fibroids, Indometriosis, Polyps, lumps all in one year.  A blessing that it is nothing more but reality that I am getting old???  Not taking care of myself?  Or both maybe.  

I am learning a bit more Japanese every day, getting to know some of the Japanese dancers but something is missing.  I haven't found my mojo here yet.  I love it, yes and think this is where I am to be right now but I am not yet here, if that makes any sense.  It's funny how at home I feel in a foreign place.  I don't feel like a stranger here or to anyone really.  Maybe it is because of the way I was raised.  Travelling, meeting new people and always in a new social setting or situation.  But I am looking for something and I fear I am looking outside myself for something that is not outside of myself.  It is not in a job or a situation but "it" resides within me.  A bit of loving discipline seems to be in order.  

People are really tired I am assuming.  I will continue this study throughout my time here, very interesting.  Everywhere I go, someone is asleep.