Mzzz Pink
Have you found joy today? If so, was it on the face of the barista who waited on you at the Coffee Chop this morning? No? Why would you ever expect to find it there, you ask cynically?
After my neon pink helicopter lands on the top of the Starbright Towers, I'll often head into the Coffee Chop for a quick cup of peppermint tea before I ascend to my globe penthouse in my pink spiral heels. When I do, I often leave a tip with a small pink card that READS "It's the Dance." I find that most of the baristas pick up the card, read it, and squint in confusion. They seem to be more concerned with the amount I left in the tip jar than the real tip I left them in my card.
After my neon pink helicopter lands on the top of the Starbright Towers, I'll often head into the Coffee Chop for a quick cup of peppermint tea before I ascend to my globe penthouse in my pink spiral heels. When I do, I often leave a tip with a small pink card that READS "It's the Dance." I find that most of the baristas pick up the card, read it, and squint in confusion. They seem to be more concerned with the amount I left in the tip jar than the real tip I left them in my card.
My pink card is not a mystery, nor is it a means to market my brand, as some media outlets claim. It's my simple way of spreading joy in what has become, sad to say, a joyless world.
I am a dancer. I grew up with my feet gliding across glossy wooden floors for as long as I can remember. Moving my feet to the music of the day sets the tone for the way I handle everything in my life, especially within my business, Splash City Studios. Whether it's dealing with an unhappy customer or a disheartened employee, if an action is right it dances in step with everyone and everything around it. If it's not, it falls flat on the dance floor, and trips up everyone coming anywhere near it. I learned this lesson pretty early in life. I am lucky that way. But I've found that so many people have not. So few understand that life is a dance.
How do you begin your day? With a groan or a smirk? If so, where do you suppose that energy goes? It emanates from you, even though you may not see it, it can feel to others who come near you as if they were just slammed against a wall. They often leave, quickly, for if they stay around you, they may be infected. The same is true if you start your day with a grin and a bounce in your step. It uplifts and connects with everyone around you. Birds sing. You encounter green lights everywhere you go. You're in step with the dance of life.
This is hardly news to most people, and yet knowing this does little to change the way so many people approach their day. I believe that's because those people have so much to groan and smirk about, like the baristas at the Coffee Chop, who work where policies are implemented that are out of step with the dance of life. Trying to stay in step with those policies on a daily basis creates stress and heartache, and shows on their faces when they fill your order for a cup of tea.
Honestly, it tears at my heartstrings to see it, day after day, and not just at the Coffee Chop but all over Splash City. Most of these policies are not designed to help the workers but to support greed. Adjusting to these dissonant steps on a daily basis takes its toll, until the dance of life becomes a march instead of a ballet or a waltz.
Yet marching is not a dance. It's a protocol; a form of control that zaps the life out of anyone who engages in it for too long, until the very beating of one's heart is out of tune.
Dancers are in harmony with their dance partners, and with the music. They feel, express, connect. But when you're marching, you're disconnected. Alone. You may be in step, but not in sync. You march in order; to someone's order. The only feeling expressed is fear.
Some may even be able to temporarily override fear and march with a contagious smile, but it's a smile, not joy. Joy can never be found in a march. Joy only emanates and spreads from an electrifying dance with life. To spread joy, you begin with the dance. It's the dance, always. As a dancer, as soon as I come within an arm's length of them, even if someone is smiling full brim, I can sense if they are marching instead of dancing. When I start to dance, they are so busy marching I end up dancing alone. That's when I leave my pink card.
I've found my joy, yet so few others have not. Since joy has become so endangered, I've made it my mission to keep an eye out for it wherever I go. Believe me, there's nothing I would like more than to stop printing up so many cards. I look forward to the day my neon pink helicopter lands on Starbright Towers and I receive an unspoken invitation to dance along with my cup of peppermint tea. I imagine the scene daily, yet it still has not come to pass. When it does - and it will - I'll be ready. I designed my spiral pink heels to turn into ballet slippers with a flip of a Velcro flap. Even if it's right in the middle of the Coffee Chop and its marching orders, wherever I find joy, I dance.
I am a dancer. I grew up with my feet gliding across glossy wooden floors for as long as I can remember. Moving my feet to the music of the day sets the tone for the way I handle everything in my life, especially within my business, Splash City Studios. Whether it's dealing with an unhappy customer or a disheartened employee, if an action is right it dances in step with everyone and everything around it. If it's not, it falls flat on the dance floor, and trips up everyone coming anywhere near it. I learned this lesson pretty early in life. I am lucky that way. But I've found that so many people have not. So few understand that life is a dance.
How do you begin your day? With a groan or a smirk? If so, where do you suppose that energy goes? It emanates from you, even though you may not see it, it can feel to others who come near you as if they were just slammed against a wall. They often leave, quickly, for if they stay around you, they may be infected. The same is true if you start your day with a grin and a bounce in your step. It uplifts and connects with everyone around you. Birds sing. You encounter green lights everywhere you go. You're in step with the dance of life.
This is hardly news to most people, and yet knowing this does little to change the way so many people approach their day. I believe that's because those people have so much to groan and smirk about, like the baristas at the Coffee Chop, who work where policies are implemented that are out of step with the dance of life. Trying to stay in step with those policies on a daily basis creates stress and heartache, and shows on their faces when they fill your order for a cup of tea.
Honestly, it tears at my heartstrings to see it, day after day, and not just at the Coffee Chop but all over Splash City. Most of these policies are not designed to help the workers but to support greed. Adjusting to these dissonant steps on a daily basis takes its toll, until the dance of life becomes a march instead of a ballet or a waltz.
Yet marching is not a dance. It's a protocol; a form of control that zaps the life out of anyone who engages in it for too long, until the very beating of one's heart is out of tune.
Dancers are in harmony with their dance partners, and with the music. They feel, express, connect. But when you're marching, you're disconnected. Alone. You may be in step, but not in sync. You march in order; to someone's order. The only feeling expressed is fear.
Some may even be able to temporarily override fear and march with a contagious smile, but it's a smile, not joy. Joy can never be found in a march. Joy only emanates and spreads from an electrifying dance with life. To spread joy, you begin with the dance. It's the dance, always. As a dancer, as soon as I come within an arm's length of them, even if someone is smiling full brim, I can sense if they are marching instead of dancing. When I start to dance, they are so busy marching I end up dancing alone. That's when I leave my pink card.
I've found my joy, yet so few others have not. Since joy has become so endangered, I've made it my mission to keep an eye out for it wherever I go. Believe me, there's nothing I would like more than to stop printing up so many cards. I look forward to the day my neon pink helicopter lands on Starbright Towers and I receive an unspoken invitation to dance along with my cup of peppermint tea. I imagine the scene daily, yet it still has not come to pass. When it does - and it will - I'll be ready. I designed my spiral pink heels to turn into ballet slippers with a flip of a Velcro flap. Even if it's right in the middle of the Coffee Chop and its marching orders, wherever I find joy, I dance.
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