Wordless Wednesday - The Little Red Truck

This is MCT week, one of my favorite weeks of the year (read this if you don't already know why) and both of my girls are in the MCT production of The Secret Garden this year.  For Wordless Wednesday this week I wanted to [not entirely wordlessly] compare my annual little red truck photos over the past three years.  Performances are on Saturday and Lily is a Firefly while Addie is part of the Secret Garden.  

2012 -  a Firefly and the Secret Garden in The Secret Garden 

2012 -  a Firefly and the Secret Garden in The Secret Garden

2011 - a Bat in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

2011 - a Bat in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

2010 - a Lobster in Alice in Wonderland

And this year we got extra lucky because the little red truck even stayed at our house!  So much fun!

One day

There are all these cliche quotes about seizing the day, or making the most of each day, or living each day as if it were your last.  We hear them, we spew them, we take little time to think about what they really mean.  Occasionally we read a book like The Last Lecture, we hear a story about a sudden death, or a child with cancer, perhaps we lose someone we love, and then we remember to actually do it.  For a while, the length of time depends on how deeply you were touched by a loss experienced.  And then living fully each day becomes again a cliche.  Because life goes on, and it's too busy to focus on the gift of the thing.  

I think this is true because it's hard to imagine what it actually looks like to live each day in fullness.  We all think, if today was my last day, well of course I wouldn't clean my house or pay my bills or go to work, but since that's not my reality, I must do all of those things, and how can I possibly live fully while paying the NW Natural bill?  Personally, if I knew a day was my last day on this earth, I would probably act like a dog chasing my tail, and having too much love to spread and hugs to give, and loose ends to tie up that I would likely waste that last day making sure someone could find all the photos I'd taken and had the password to my laptop.  Sad.  

But really, one day does have the power to change my life.  As I pondered how to be open to days that fill me and change me, it got me to thinking of some of the unexpected days that changed my life.  

• The day I met Lawrence.  We woke up that day, both wishing we didn't have to go to a stupid one day quality training seminar in a stuffy hotel conference room in Boise, Idaho
• The day I met Lily
• The day I met Addie
• The day I met Bryson  
• The day I first tried out for a Missoula Children's Theater play, when, on a whim, my mom came to get me and brought me to my audition late.  Related to that, the day I got the call that I was accepted to the MCT Performing Arts Camp  
• The day I found out my Grandma Jo died
• The day I was asked to take a job in 'The New York Office'
• The day Lily and I had a very special conversation about Jesus  
• The day my little brother was born 
• The day my neighbor came over to introduce me to her and her 16 month old son, Nathaniel
• The day I was driving to work on a sunny September day and saw a plane fly into the side of a building in the far off skyline, thinking it was a dumb mistake, and then seeing another one do the same and knowing that it was not
• The day I got the call to work on the YCC crew for the summer with the US Forest Service when I was 15
• The day Robin came over to invite me to LaLeche League
• The day that I bumped into my long lost Dawn at Will's orientation for University of Montana  
• The day that Will came out to me
• The day that we first decided to go for it, and start trying to get pregnant with our first child
• The day that I kissed Wes in the back of a weird station wagon  
• The day that my good friend Jim died  
• The day I went to a baby chiropractor to see if she could fix Bryson's colic - Related, the day that I emailed Dr. Sarah and asked her for permission to stop nursing my colicky RSV 5 week old.
• The day that my brother left for Iraq
• The day I got my heart broken into a million pieces by a boyfriend I hoped to marry.  
• The day I got a call from my ex-roommate's hometown friend, asking if I needed a place to live the summer before my sophomore year of college.  That girl ended up being the matron of honor at our wedding.    
• The day I went to a temp job at NYK Line, and a girl with glasses named Jeanine with a new baby daughter sat down and trained me to enter container numbers into a NICS system  
• The day a girl named Carrie responded to my ad on Craigslist for a nanny, she didn't end up being our nanny, but she ended up being a life line instead
• The day my house was set on fire
• The day I gave Rachel's mom from KinderCare a roll of green tape to mark her breastmilk bottles at home 
• The day I broke my foot
• The day the boyfriend I hoped to marry, got down on a knee asked me.  I had never felt so wanted and loved in all of my life.  The reality of the commitment that he wanted to make with me.  I felt so...chosen.  

Each of those days have a long and heartfelt story to them, some of them I have blogged and some of them I haven't.  Some of them are the day that led to a much greater and more profound story, a story that went far beyond the events of that day, and shaped me in some beautiful way.  Each of those days I could describe almost every detail, and many of which I know the actual date on the calendar.  I remember the smells in the air, the way I felt, what I was wearing.  every.single.thing.  The thing they all have in common is that for every single one of them I woke up and didn't expect anything special or different to happen that day, it was an ordinary day to get through.  Not necessarily one I remembered to seize.  Maybe I had coffee, showered, got dressed, felt rushed, tired, annoyed maybe, happy maybe, and yet they still shifted my life in a big and lasting way.  They made me look at life in a whole new way.  I was loved at the right times, for who I needed to be loved for at that time.  I got to love in ways I never knew possible.  I mourned.  Friendships flourished.  New understandings began.  I could relate.  I could appreciate.  A life course started to roll a new direction I could have never imagined.  All because one day went the way it did.  

At Women of Faith in October, the very wise Patsy Clairmont told us to start off the day every day saying 3 things.

Yes, No, and Thank you.  

I believe in God, so I will put it in those terms, but if you don't I know this still applies to you.  

Yes- I'm open and ready for whatever the day holds for me.  Use me for the greater good, for the purpose I'm meant for. Use me for Your higher purposes, for goodness and joy, to spread Your love.  YES, I am ready and willing.

No- To the people and things I should say no to.  The things that suck your time, energy, and soul.  You know what those things are.  You know because you leave those people, activities, and things feeling drained, tired, and dread doing them.  Unfortunately those no's are needed towards some people, and if you are a pleaser (like me), you want to spend time and energy on everyone.  But if you leave a conversation feeling negative, tired, and there is something just ugh.  You need to be conscious to say no to those people.  The ones you shouldn't say no to are the ones who leave you feeling inspired, encouraged, joyful, who leave you wanting more time together.    

Thank you- GRATITUDE IS AN ATTITUDE.  Wear it, smile it, think it.  You have so darn many things in this life to say thank you for that your heart could explode if you took the time to think about it.  So think about it.  Every morning.  

Then roll out of bed and get ready for a day that could change your life.  Or maybe it won't.  But it is an interesting thing to sit back and think about the days that changed your life unexpectedly, or in unexpected ways.  

Tell me about some of the days that changed your life.  

MCT - Take one

Me and Lily - Oct 2010

A month ago you VOTED for me writing this blog, I started on November 7 and am finally posting now - backlog unload - SCORE one for me!

If you follow my facebook feed, you would know that a few weeks ago, Lily was cast in the Missoula Children's Theater's local production of Alice in Wonderland at her school. Since MCT was a real life changing organization for me as a kid and a young adult, I was both excited and nervous for her to audition. I didn't want to be a bossy stage mom, but at the same time, I REALLY wanted her to get a part, and I knew how the audition process would go. What if I got her all excited about this show that I so wanted her to be a part of and then she didn't get a part? What if she never got to experience the wonderfulness that is the MCT tour? I had butterflies the entire day at work and then held my breath the entire audition, as they lined up tallest to smallest, in true Jim Caron fashion and said their names with loud and clear voices, big and expressive bodies, all the while - and most importantly - following directions and paying attention. She was the second smallest.Lily is 3rd from the right

Before I get ahead of myself I should probably go back a little and talk a little about my own MCT experiences. This could probably be a whole series of blogs on it's own, and maybe over the years it will be. Memories flooded me the last few weeks. FLOODED me. My love and admiration for Jim, Michael, and Melanie - three important people in the organization - as well as for my little community growing up and the Wallowa Valley Arts Counsel for bringing tour actors to my little home county year after year.

I was seven years old, it was March and I was in the second grade. I had big glasses and short awkward choppy hair. I'd started to experience the rejection that comes with looking the way I did and dressing the way I did and ACTING the way I did from some of the kids at school. I was nearly a year younger than many of the kids in my class, in those early years it made a big difference in maturity- but I was more advanced than most academically, plus what with the big glasses (the next year I'd get tri-focals-to call them coke bottles would be an understatement), the lack of any sort of fashion or style, the non stop talking, and the pestering of those who pestered me...I was quite lonely. I had a few good friends, but I definitely knew at that young age that I was different from most of the kids at school. I was aware that there were birthday parties I wasn't invited to, I got left out of 4 square games, didn't get to jump rope with the "cool" girls, and the year before some of the kids had been in a play that I knew nothing about. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The auditions for this year's play, were today. But my (very pregnant) mom had to work, deadline day at her newspaper was tomorrow and she couldn't come get me after school to take me to the audition in our neighboring town - 6 miles away. So after school I called her at work and pleaded one more time. She finally agreed (enter mom guilt) but it would take her 15 minutes to get to Joseph and back to Enterprise where the auditions were being held, so I'd be a half an hour late. That sounded okay to me. She came and got me, I was SO happy. I still remember pacing circles in the small road by out house as I waited for her car to appear. It was a chilly March or April in Wallowa County - but it wasn't freezing as it sometimes was that time of year. It's it funny the specifics you remember when things really matter to you.

When we got to the audition, I was more than a half an hour late, Val M, the local person in charge of setting the whole thing up, putting me in a line of kids who were already chosen for a part, so they took down my name and got in, I didn't really have to do anything to audition. I LOVED it. I was a Pleasure Isle Kid in Pinocchio. I can never thank my mom enough for getting me to that audition. Late even, so that I didn't even have to chance the rejection there.

Growing up in Wallowa County, there wasn't much as far as extra curricular activities other than sports, and I wasn't very good at those. So MCT showed me that I had talent and there was a place for a hard working, memorization expert, loud talking, kid like me. The louder the better? AWESOME. Big expressive bodies? Loud and clear voices? Following dir....well, two out of three weren't bad. And as it turns out, I COULD listen and sit still when my most important one week a year depended on it! At that young age, acting gave me value.

Me in my first "lead" as a brat in Johnny Appleseed, I'm the one sitting with glasses

Years later, I would be invited to go to an exclusive camp outside of Missoula, Montana on Flathead lake that I could audition for after the recommendation of the tour actors only. 1-2 kids per town were referred, if any, and then there was a lengthy audition process. I will NEVER EVER forget the day that I got the phone call to let me know I got in. In fact, I'm friends on FaceBook now with the camp director and I emailed her the story recently. What I wouldn't do to get my hands on that audition tape. I sang "That's what friends are for", sitting on the floor of my bedroom with a tape deck. (Okay must remember to copy and paste that email for another blog for sure!) I went to that camp for six years for two weeks every summer. Some of my dearest friends to this day I met at MCT camp.Me in MCT PAC show 'Growing Pains; Rockin' a Hard Place' circa summer 1990 (front & center)

Ultimately I ended up going to college at University of Montana in Missoula because the place held such amazing memories from my youth. And then Missoula was filled with college memories and friends, and many of my camp friends who I reconnected with there, became my college friends instead of my camp friends. And, well, I sort of forgot the deep impact that Missoula Children's Theater had. Or I hadn't stopped to think about it for a while.

Until this year when the flier camp home for volunteers needed at Lily's school in the fall with MCT on the list for the last week of October. Until Lily's audition. Until she was cast. Until I watched her run out on stage during dress rehearsal and I burst into tears at the sight of it. She was a little Lobster who teaches Alice a Lobster Quadrille. I was so excited and PROUD of her and so was she.

She's center among the five on the first row, silly faces

During the week of auditions, the tour actors were selling copies of The Little Red Truck, and I bought one, not believing that I hadn't watched it yet after wanting to for so long. The next day I mentioned to Kaitlyn, our tour actor, that I cried as I watched it, thinking how lucky I am to have been directed by Jim Caron (founder of MCT) and Michael McGill. The other actor, stopped what he was doing and said, "You've been directed by Jim and Michael?!". It's a pretty big honor that's for sure, though it's hard to explain (to people who don't know them) that such a big theatrical mecca could really be located in unlikely Montana. Unless you've been to Missoula, then you probably get it.

We found our Little Red Truck in the parking lot upon leaving the audition and I had Lily get a picture next to it.

 

If you aren't familiar with what MCT does, you MUST click here. But the jist of it is 2 tour actors come to a school on a Monday, cast a show in 2 hrs, and then start rehearsals on Monday night, and have 6 days to put on a full scale production with 60 or so kids. They do a 2 shows on Saturday, then pack up their Little Red Truck and head on to the next town and change more lives of more little kids.

Lily will never understand how and why MCT meant so much to me. She lives in a city filled with opportunities and arts (plus she seems to be pretty good at sports and her vision is 20/20!) But that doesn't matter, it matters to me that I got to see her take part in something so special to me. I wouldn't say I'm living vicariously, just seeing her have fun doing something that I loved so much, means more to me that I can describe. The flood of memories that came back to me that week over a month ago, they mean so very much to me, as do all of my valuable experience with Missoula and it's Children's Theatre. Thanks Jim, Michael, and Melanie. You changed little Jenny and gave big Jenny the gift of watching her daughter sing "Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"Lily has on the brown shoes and is 4th from the right...

Dress rehearsal


Performance one


Performance two


I'll close with this quote from Jim just says so much:

JIM CARON: To this day, I don't exactly understand how it works. But, I mean, Mom and Dad are cheering for them, and so are all the friends, and, you know, the kid that made fun of them on the playground last week, they're all cheering for them. And you can see the light bulbs going over their heads. And they relate this experience and the elements of this experience to other things in their lives.

Getting started to get started

I have SO many things to blog about that I'm blogging about nothing! And each day something new comes that I want to blog about and I don't.

There are just so many things...

First we had Lily's birthday party
Next a post with some pictures as Lily sees the world through her new camera
Some other general things to be grateful for
Bryson's 10 month post - he has a tooth and is taking steps
PLUS our family went to the pumpkin patch and the kids have gone with Julia 2x with some amazing pictures to show for it.
Then Lily got cast in her school's MCT play
THEN MY MIND WENT RACING regarding my love affair with MCT and all the ways it shaped my life's path
Then Pumpkin Carving
DOn't forget the post on why Addie thinks I'm a bad mom :)
Then Lily's last soccer game
Plus Addie to Disney on Ice (since there are no pictures that probably won't be a full post)
Next the MCT performance
AND HALLOWEEN.

And just today, Lily's school conferences and me doing something right. Us, I mean, us, Lawrence is obviously doing it too. I'm just selfish and like to take all credit for myself.

Okay, now that it's out there, perhaps I can tackle something.

October was just too awesome I guess. Parts of it felt awesome but at the time it felt almost too busy to enjoy it, but I know I did, I just don't remember enjoying it all. That's okay, I guess, but it would probably be better next time if I remembered enjoying it, you know, because that part would be nice.

Any votes for what I write about first? Or should I just continue rambling about not knowing where to start? Wordless Wednesday tomorrow...that's an easy one!