Spring Cleaning, Spring Cleansing

As the quote goes, "Today is today, the sun is shining, the tank is clean...(GASP) THE TANK IS CLEAN!" You heard right, the sun is in fact shining and suddenly the weather has started to resemble that of Spring. With this past weekend sitting at around 62 as an average, it was prime time to get out and see the city. Not to mention, the "tank is clean" too! As you probably have noticed I've changed the name and URL of my blog to: A Splash Of Gratitude. All of my old posts are still here, so it's essentially the same thing. So, in changing my blog header and name, I cleaned my room as well. I folded all my laundry, hung up all the hangable articles, and reorganized some things so that the sun could shine in my area a little bit more. When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no clue what was in store. My friend Tia and I decided that we would take the mile and a half walk to the boston commons. The commons are this GIANT green area in the center of the city that consist of paths, ponds, kids, trees, sort of like a more open version of central park. On our hike, we discovered what may have been the cutest thing I have ever seen. 

• Little boy in little gray sweatshirt just walking along in between his parents: cute points - 1. 
• The parents are these totally trendy sort of artsy people, down to earth looking: cute points -2
• We overhear a game of "I Spy": cute points - 3
• The little boy says "I spy something pretty." Mommy says, "Is it Daddy?" "Noooo" he replies, "Is it Cooper" (which we assumed was his name) "Nooooo" he says again. Then Daddy says, "It is mommy?" and the little boy says, "YES!!!": cute points: 2 trillion

That innocence is so infectious and can literally change the course of your day. There are times when I miss having that sort of playful loving mind, and I wish I could go back there, but I realize that I had that, and sometimes we all still do. It just means we have to cherish those innocent moments we have more. The other day I was telling another friend of mine that I missed Orientation week so much. We all loved each other, it was all ahead of us, and we had no clue what was coming. I guess looking back I think I appreciate it more than I miss it. Now we've all already grown and learned so much that I would never REALLY want to go back to that. But, I can look back and say, that was amazing and I loved every second. That's a splash of gratitude if you ask me. I will say, I didn't want to turn back once we had reached to commons. I had never really been there, I had seen it a bunch of times, but never sat down or walked around and explored, and boy was I missing out. With the sun and the music from the people playing in the park, the birds (except the pigeons), the sky, the air, the trees, the water, the grass, EVERYTHING was beautiful and we just sat and soaked it all in. After sitting, then walking for a bit, we decided to take a trip down a street neither of us had been before, Commonwealth Ave. It's lined with trees down the center, and the brownstones on either side or more than magnificent. We eventually turned towards the river and went to a favorite spot of ours known as "The Docks". It's not REALLY a dock, its more like a wood platform built out from the land that we all lay on and sit and just relax and take in the sun. And that's exactly what we did. Tia and I actually fell asleep for about 40 minutes listening to Jason Mraz in the sun. We awoke with the realization that the breeze was picking up, we proceeded back to the dorms and rested until the evening was upon us. 

We headed over, with Gavin, another close friend, to a favorite dining spot: Cafeteria. Not THE cafeteria, that's the name of the restaurant. Dinner was lovely, and we laughed our butts off, and then Tia went on her way to Harvard with some girls to meet straight boys, and Gavin and I, along with another friend, Amos, went to this place that Gavin had been DYING to take me to. He calls it "The Spot" and that's pretty much what it is. We got off the train at a random stop that he knew, and as we traveled up the escalator back to ground level, we saw a skyline emerging. It was the boston skyline, clear as a crystal. The sky was empty you could see every window in Boston. I sat back and realized where I was, where I had been all day. I was in space. I as close to the stars as I could get. I was living and breathing, and I was so beyond grateful. Nothing else mattered at that moment. 

None of the petty drama, the exhaustion from the school year, the homesickness, the judgements, the people, none of it mattered. I was standing in the middle of space. Gavin made a good point in saying that it was nothing even compared to the Chicago skyline, but I told him that it was more about stepping outside and looking in. The three of us realized that we had been living in that cluster of lights and buildings, and we had never really gotten the chance to see it from the outside. And that was it, I knew that I was in "No Man's Land." I had finally reached it. If you read my last blog, I wrote about it, so go catch up. But I have to say that at the moment I took a deep breath in a felt so free. There was so much I didn't know, and so much I was going to know, and even more that I wasn't going to know and it was all ok. We were just standing and looking, sort of at ourselves. I knew then that I needed to change the title of my blog, and start explaining that even though there are so many things that suck, and it's unrealistic to forget about them all, there is always SOMETHING to be grateful for. Big or small. When we got home, we just relaxed for a few hours and then headed to bed. 

Today was a different story. This morning I awoke to the sound of my alarm that read; SGA Aquarium. I replied loudly "OH S*$&" Today I was taking a trip the aquarium (for free) with the Student Government Association I was a part of. I hopped up, got in the shower, ran to Starbucks for a muffin and tea, and then met everyone in the student center. By some lucky chance, not everyone showed up so we were able to have lunch for free at the Aquarium. I don't really want to say anything cheesy about the fish, so I'll refrain. But, I will say that it was cool to be there and be able to cross that off my list of things to do in Boston. 

After we had walked around the entire Aquarium and admired the penguins with childlike innocence, we decided we would walk back to school because it was so nice outside. The walk from the Aquarium is about 40 minutes and is 2.25 miles. I should mention that at this point it was four of us, just wanted to make sure you didn't think it was like 15 people, there were only four now. So as we began our trek, Elyse mentioned that she had never been to the north end, we saw I sign with an arrow and decided to go for it, we had no where to be in a rush. We walked a little bit out of the way to Mikes Pastries, a Boston staple. We didn't end up buying anything but Elyse was excited that she got the chance to see it. 

We started walking back towards the school, and we ended up stopping at 2 old graveyards that seemed to have some tourist appeal and realized we were visiting the graves of some of the most important people in American history. Such as, John Hancock, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and John Winthrop. We knew that we would have never even had the chance to see these, if we hadn't decided to walk. So we kept on our way and passed the commons on our path and noticed music and tents that were in the center court of the commons. We ventured in and realized that it was greek festival, WHICH was fully equipped with parade! Of course we stopped and watched the parade for a bit before continuing on and discovering a game of quiddich that was taking place. This is not a joke. There were 2 teams of college kids playing full fledged quiddich with brooms and all. At the utter shock we stopped and watched a little before continuing back to the school where I proceeded to clean like I explained before. Reflecting on the day, it's crazy to think that all of these major bostonian things were all so close and I had never even taken the time to go out and explore. 

This weekend was a definite cleansing for me, I was able to step outside of my environment and then immerse myself in the deep culture more than ever. There are a lot of things that suck, and are downers, and can turn your day for the worst, and to say that being grateful makes all that go away is crazy. But, I do know that every once in a while I need a reminder of how lucky I am, and really how lucky we all are that we're breathing and living and loving. This weekend was probably one of, if not THE, best weekend i've had in boston yet. Not too bad for 48 hours.

all that with a splash of gratitude,

Matt

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Tonight, Tonight

Today was, for those of you who don't know, the opening and closing day of the show that I was a part of this semester. I've talked about it a few times here, but essentially it's a cabaret consisting of numbers that are miscast. So, songs were gender bended (is that a word?), rearranged, all sorts of fun and fierce stuff. We had two official shows this evening, in fact I just returned from one of them! The two shows went over really well and we raised over $500 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which is really exciting. I was so honored to be a part of such an amazing group of people who are not only talented, but caring and loving people. It was a blast to put together, and even more fun to perform. I'm sure I'll be posting videos of the show on here soon! As of right this moment, I am writing this blog while getting dressed and taking a breath before our cast party, which should prove to be quite epic. Though, my voice is pretty much shot after belting everything this past week. Luckily, there's nothing big coming up and my voice is not shot for good so it should take a day to recover. Other than that, I just need to give a shout out to everyone in the cast and production team...so there it is.


As for the deeper part of this blog post, I had the opportunity last week to take a trip to the hospital with a friend who was having some issues. Luckily, everything is ok now, but this whole experience got me thinking. Beyond that, this week has been crazy stressful and there are things that I almost committed to doing that I shouldn't have even thought about. What I'm getting at is that sometimes as people we have to step back and admit that we, ourselves, are not the best choice or option to handle a situation. Human nature often overrules this common sense and makes our minds believe that we can be a hero in that moment. What truly is a hero? A hero is sometimes someone dressed in a silly costume flying around killing cartoon monsters, it's sometimes a person who wins against all odds and shows extreme amounts of courage and bravery, and sometimes its person who is able to "save the day" even if they're not the one to actually physically do it. The pat on the head is an amazing feeling no doubt, but it feels better inside to see someone happy, someone better, something solved and problems ceased, especially when you know that you enabled it to happen. Though, we can't confuse the word enable for something it's not. Enabling is sort of connected to this whole thing in that we often times feel the need to be the hero for someone else's problems. Thus, people begin to rely on others for almost everything, instead of being able to solve problems themselves. This act of enabling is something we often don't recognize until after the fact. And that's a great time to do it because then it's possible to learn from the things you've done. Keyword - YOU've done. You are in more control than you think you are, and you are the only person who can make decisions for you. There is only ONE constant in your life, and that is you. As hard of an idea is that is to grasp, it's important nonetheless. I talked about in the last post, but to expand, as people we can only rely on one person to be there the rest of our lives and that's ourselves. So, with that, don't rely on others to solve your problems. Take some initiative and try to do it yourself, but also, be able to realize when you need help from someone who knows what to do, not a friend who will do what you want. This sounds really hard, and somewhat complicated, and unfortunately it is, but it all happens in a matter of moments. It's a decision you make on the fly. So, keep it in the back of your mind. (Did that rhyme)


Sorry for digressing a bit, but now I'm off to party hardy with the cast and team of miscast. I am nervous, yet excited to see what the night holds.


All my love,

Matt

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Drink With Me

It's been almost a month since my last post, and I finally have the time to sit down and just write. Truthfully there's no way I could tell you everything that's been happening, so I'll pick out the good stuff and give you that. To start, when last I was in blog world I made two video-blogs (vlogs) which went over quite well. I thought about doing this one as a vlog, but decided there was too much ground to cover. Though, I have to give kudos to my brother Joey for helping me out. He had some great ideas which eventually formed into what the second video blog is. If I'm not mistaken, that took place during Tech weekend of Hansel & Gretel, the opera in which I was running the light board for. If you didn't know, I recently learned how to program the board and have since become a board operator here at school. In fact, something no one really knows yet, is that not only will I be programming the board for a lighting designer in our Tommy, one of our mainstage productions, I recently found out that I'm going to be doing a large portion of the actual lighting design for the freshman revue. I could not deliver this news with a more happy refrain. As soon as I arrived at school, it was a goal of mine to be able to design a show on the mainstage by the time I graduate, which was something that was very far out of reach because most of the time the school hires lighting designers from outside. Freshman revue, however hectic, will truly be a dream come true for me. I'll be performing and designing the show, so I can't wait to get started with all that. 

I also found out that I am going to have the opportunity to perform in a benefit cabaret called "miscast". It's essentially a cast of 12 or so kids performing songs and numbers that they could never perform in shows. Opposite sex, gender, race, type, all that stuff. The rehearsals have been fun to say the least, and I'm looking forward to our performances this weekend. In the show, I'm in a number of trios and group songs like "She's In Love" from The Little Mermaid, as well as an acoustic disney princess medley with 4 other boys. I'm sure they'll be videos to see, so keep your eyes peeled. I was lucky enough to have my mom come out to boston to visit me and my uncle, who was in Rhode Island at the time, and have her watch some rehearsals. If you ask anyone who's a performer, rehearsals are of course fun, but they are work, it's like a job. To see my mom sit in a room and smile at just the thought of hearing us sing is something that I hold close to my heart. It makes me happy to see how happy she gets when she's sitting in a simple rehearsal that we sort of take for granted. She was really blown away by the talent, and we were marking! Truthfully, every time she comes she's blown away, but she told me it was like all the leads from Glenbrook Musicals had come together and formed these people that were "fierce" as she would say. We had an amazing time driving around, sitting around, walking around, and just hanging around boston for a few days. I even got to stay in the hotel with her! 

The highlight of the trip had to be BoCo's annual Drag Show which she insisted on seeing. I have to admit I was fairly hesitant because it's not every day that your date to the show where all the boys are dressing up as women, is your mom. Nevertheless, we went and had an amazing time. She also, while visiting, had the chance to see the apartment that I am hoping to live in next year. It's currently occupied by a BoCo senior, but I can't give away any details or pictures until the deal is done. As soon as it happens, I'll be sure to post pictures and all that! To be honest, I think that's the most exciting things that have happened in the past 3 weeks. I've been working hard on posters and logos, freelance and now that I am officially apart of the student government here at school, I've been doing their stuff too. 

With all this going on, I have had some time to reflect on things and look at the big picture. Coming back to school was in fact very difficult for me. The adjustment back in to college life was harder than expected. I am more than happy to be here, of course, but sometimes your mind has a chance to slip back in to home mode, and you realize how much you left behind coming here. But that was revelation I made, I hadn't truly left anything behind. Everything that has happened up till now, is a large part of who I am. I am 18 years old for gosh sakes! I don't need to be worrying about the rest of my life when today's not even over. I realize I've said that before, but it's so important to know. With every day comes new opportunities, and new challenges, and new likes and gripes, and it's all part of it. There's been this terrible flu like thing sweeping school and I was working so hard not to get it, but even with all my efforts, I did attain the virus, the plague some are calling it. I was lucky enough not to have an awful case of it, but I still had to miss about a day of school. As much it sucked sitting in bed all day looking outside at the 50 degree weather and wishing I was out there, I knew that tomorrow was a new day. In fact, that next day I ended up helping out the Musical Theatre auditions and meeting a ton of extremely cool people. As corny or cheesy as it sounds, I have to sit back and say that I had no clue Friday morning, that Saturday not only would I be meeting prospective students, I'd be seeing the Justin Bieber movie with two of my lovely friends.

(If you didn't know I'm a huge Bieber fan!) No one can predict what tomorrow, or even today will bring. Embrace it all. Let the people around you continue to inspire and challenge and fuel every emotion conjured up in that chamber that we call our hearts. We are stronger and in more control than we think. A good friend once told me that we can only feel comfortable with others, once we are comfortable with ourselves. That doesn't necessarily mean like your sexuality, or political opinions, it means being comfortable with hanging out with you. Yourself. He gave me the advice to take some time for me and do something I loved. So I whipped out my guitar, and it felt better than I could have ever imagined it. That's not to say that now I am all comfortable with me, and I can live happily ever after. We are all a work in progress, always. For every single action we take there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you give, you will get. And if not today, than maybe tomorrow, or maybe in while, but you will get. So I'm going to keep on giving and soak in every little thing I get. The people who give to me, mean more than they know and have a really special place in my heard. You know who you are, and if you don't than you'll know by the fact that when I say I love you, I truly mean it. 

I realize now how long this post is probably going to seem, and how I sort of just ranted for a while, but hey, it felt good. And, if you don't want to read it, you don't have to! Thus, you have reached the end, and have read the whole thing, or at least skimmed it. Whatever works. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read about my life, which sounds sort of odd. Before I go, I will send my love to all my friends back at home and in colleges and cities around the country, because now more than ever, I realize how important each and every one of you is. Thanks for everything so far, and here's to many more (I raise my bottle of smart water to you). 

Cheers mate.

Matt

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Christmas Lullaby

Hello from beneath the rays of sunny florida. I am currently sitting in my room with my cousin Jordan and I decided to post since it's been a few days. Let me recap some of the past week for all ya'lls. So, the flight to FLA was quite nice. Nothing too bad, easy window seat, and a couple that only spoke spanish next to me wasn't the worst combination. Beside the fact that they fell asleep and endlessly drooled on each other, it was all good. I got my luggage ok and was happy to be arriving in Florida, and not in snowy and cold Chicago. I hung out with my grandparents for a whole 24 hours and it was lovely. We went to dinner at this really "hip" restaurant that is owned by the same people who run my favorite place in Florida. The next day my mom, dad, and brother arrived and the fun began. Since than we've been sitting in the sun and just hanging out, not to mention sleeping in and staying up late.Why you ask? Because this kid is new Netflix subscriber and has become addicted the Showtime sensation, Weeds. I have already finished 2 seasons in a matter of 48 hours and I cannot stop. I love the fact that the show is classified as a dramady, which is exactly what it is. There are moments that I laugh quite hard, and moments where I am literally sitting on my bed with my mouth wide open. It keeps me on edge the entire time, I am, like I said, addicted. Speaking of dramatic media, my first night here I had the privilege of seeing "The Black Swan" with my grandparents, not something I would recommend. The movie itself was fantastic and Natalie Portman was stunning. I sincerely hope she wins the oscar, or at least something. That's the kind of role that can mess someone up in their head, and she really was acting out of her mind, like crazy amazing. Speaking of ACTING, I recently started reading a book for my acting class, "The Actor and The Target". I really didn't know what to expect but I have to say, though I am only 3 chapters in, it's incredible. I'm already learning a lot from it! If you're into deep stuff about acting, give it a good read. That means you Rachel Rubenstein. Other than that, there hasn't been much going on. Today my aunt, uncle and cousins arrived, and the party REALLY got started. Tonight we got dinner at a restaurant named LoLa, and it was mighty delicious. There was, of course, no lack of laughs as it always is when our whole family is together. It was a lot of fun and it made me sit back and appreciate my family on this Christmas Eve. LoLa stands for Laugh often, Love A Lot and I guess this will be the deep part of my blog for the night. I decided, after taking a picture of the sign, and thinking about it I sort of decided I need to do both a lot more. I think that at school I have been taking things a little too seriously, and maybe in life in general too. I need to start laughing stuff off, and today I had the chance to grab a bit with an old camp friend and it reminded me how good laughing feels. There are so many memories from camp that make me laugh harder than anything else, and I realized that I need more of that in the rest of my life. So from now on, I'm gonna laugh...more. In terms of Love A Lot, I'm gonna start by showing my love for the people around me more. Sometimes I guess I take things for granted, like people, and I don't tell people how much they mean to me enough. So, that's my "preach" for the day. Give it thought, do you laugh and love enough? Anyway, I hope that this finds you well and that your new year is wonderful and bright. And of course, have a merry Christmas. 

(I have been dying to end my blog like this since I started)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

-Matt

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