This evening I met my friend CJ for dinner and a show in Fayetteville. It’s been forever since we’ve seen each other. Probably six months or more. We were talking about how slow time seems to pass when you’re looking forward to an event or waiting for something to happen. Like, it’ll be five more months before I can dance again (because of my recent knee injury and subsequent surgery), and that feels like ages. But when you look back–has it really been two months since I hurt myself, has it really been six months since we’ve seen each other?–gosh, time flies by.

I guess it’s just perspective.

After CJ and I ate, we walked around Dickson Street before the show started. I say walked around, but because it was butt-cold, something like twenty degrees, we more like scurried. Ugh, I hate winter. The snow was falling, the wind was blowing, my nipples were hard and everything. CJ said her boogers froze. Anyway, we ended up at one of my favorite used book stores. And whereas I had a fabulous time looking around (I adore a good book), I actually wasn’t tempted to buy anything. Go figure. Maybe I’m coming down with a fever.

The show we saw was at Theatre Squared and was called Every Brilliant Thing. It starred Liz Callaway, who–I learned tonight–played Grizabella in Cats on Broadway. (Swoon.) In tonight’s show, Liz played a seven-year-old (who eventually grows up) whose mother is manic-depressive and suicidal. Well, in order to make her mom feel better, she makes a list of “every brilliant thing” about life–ice cream, water fights, staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV–over a hundred things. And although the list doesn’t bring her mother out of her depression, it becomes a touchstone in the girl’s own life, something she comes back to over and over again throughout high school, college, marriage, and separation. In time, the list grows to a million different things that are wonderful about life–the smell of an old book, Chrisopher Walken’s voice, hairdressers who listen to what you want.

Here’s a picture of a bunch of brilliant things audience members wrote on a board outside the theater space. My contribution: 80s music.

One of the brilliant things about the show was that although it technically only starred Liz, it included nearly everyone in the audience. That is, before the show started, Liz handed out numbered notecards to many of us that each listed a single brilliant thing on it. Then as the show started and progressed, Liz would call out a number, 6 for example, and someone would say, “Roller coasters!” CJ’s card was 999–Sunshine. Mine was 518. When Liz handed it to me, she smiled and said, “I was told you wanted a long card.” It said, “When idioms coincide with real-life occurrences, for instance: waking up, realizing something and simultaneously smelling coffee.”

I can’t tell you what fun this play was. Not only did I laugh and cry, I was reminded that there are a million beautiful things about life to celebrate and take note of, even when you feel depressed, even when your chips are down. For example, this knee injury has been a real drag, especially since dancing and teaching dance is largely how I make a living. Yet in the midst of this not-so-fabulous predicament, I’ve had AMAZING care. Plus, this situation has caused me to slow down and be kinder to myself. It’s gotten me back in the gym. It’s gotten my dad IN the gym, and that’s huge. Now we’re spending more time together. Talk about brilliant things.

I guess it’s just perspective.

Seriously, I could go on about why my life is beautiful right here, right now. This morning I had granola with homemade kefir for breakfast–delicious. My car, Tom Collins, has heated seats–glorious. This evening when I thought I’d left the tickets for tonight’s show at home and called the box office to find out what to do, the woman I spoke to said, “No worries. We didn’t actually mail the tickets. They’re here at the theater. Plus, we always have a list, so you’re perfect.” A stranger said I was perfect! (How perfect is that?) Anyway, I won’t go on, but I think we should all do this now and then–talk about brilliant things–because we feel better when we do. The way I see, it shifts our perspective, wakes us up to the love that resides within our own good hearts.

Here’s something wild. My grandpa, my dad’s dad, used to wear coveralls, like, every damn day. With the exception of the occasional funeral or anniversary, I really can’t remember him wearing anything else. Well, tonight after the show, out of the blue, CJ gave me a pair of grandpa’s old coveralls and a straw hat he used to wear whenever he worked in the yard. The two of them were friends, and I guess she ended up with them after he died ten years ago. “I thought you’d like to have them,” she said. I still can’t get over it. This is what I think is truly brilliant about life, that on the coldest night of the year, you can find yourself making memories with a good friend; that years after a loved one leaves you, their memory can come flooding back; that one or a million brilliant things can remind you of the love that always lives inside you.