It’s almost Christmas everyone! I’ve actually “lost” quite a few Christmases lately… I’ve been busy working at work, working at school, working at my business… and the whole event of Christmas just passes me by. Last year I actually put presents in brown paper Trader Joe’s bags and called them “wrapped.” Even for the kids! I made food a week ahead of time and froze portions like some kind of deli. And the days before Christmas, I realized that I hadn’t bothered to get a Christmas tree or to buy Christmas cards so I said skip the foliage and put presents on the Telefunken and sent out emails… not even emailed Christmas cards, just plain emails! Wow, that was bad. Really, really bad.

This year, as all the years before it, there were triumphs and tragedies, great joy and great sadness, growing and failing. One of the greatest gifts this year has been the gift of dance. This year, ballet has become something more than an entertaining diversion, sitting in the darkness watching others ply an art, recognizing its beauty but knowing it was far from personal. This year, ballet is mine; it is literally etching itself onto my physical form and carving itself into my brain and it has been a truly humbling and similarly liberating experience.

I am not hungry, I am not cold, I am not homeless. My health  is stable. I do not run from the past and I do not fear the future. My Christmas wish is that I hold this always in the forefront of my being and that I am mindful of all that I have and all that I do not have and that I finally realize that it takes courage and incredible effort to embrace those things that I love and make them wholly mine.

My Christmas wish for you is for the strength, courage, and audacity to embrace all the things that you love with such voracity that it cannot help but become yours and that if you dance, that ballet is truly yours this year and in the next.