I’m back in LA after being in Mexico for two weeks doing free shows for migrants with Living Dream Arts ! I couldn’t post much during the tour, and am still not able to post audience pics. In many ways, this was the hardest humanitarian tour I’ve been on. Yet in many ways, I learned the most about the point of doing this in the first place.
We served many populations, including HIV positive orphans, children who made it through the border and were put in cages and then deported, battered women, people living at a dump, deaf children, kids with cerebral palsy, and more.
For several of these places, it wasn’t until after we left that I found out what they had gone through. Every time I do a tour like this, I am brought back to the same conclusions. 1) Kids are the same, no matter where we are 2) you never know what someone is dealing with, so always show up with kindness and 3) It’s not about us.
We have so, so much here in America. What we think of as “broke” is luxurious to most of the rest of the world. Daily problems can feel overwhelming but when you visit these people and realize there are tons of migrants living in a cramped space with no bathroom, when a man is selling bracelets to make $10 a day to feed his daughters...the rest of it becomes insignificant. No matter what is happening behind the scenes, it forces us to hit the pause button and show up for someone else.
I am so grateful to be given the gift of perspective, which I admit I lose all the time. Grateful to be in situations where I have to let go of my emotional state upon arrival and become a vessel for the show, the magic, the experience I want to share with people who are going through so much more than me. I have practiced that skill over time, and I am still far from perfect. It is an opportunity to reflect on our priorities and how we want to focus our energy in this world. I don’t have any answers on how to fix it, but I can at least try not to sweat the small stuff, as it is a privilege to have small stuff to sweat.
