2-07-2023 9:28am

When You Get Down, Let Your Dreams Help Lift You Up

Christine Larkin Editor

SKYLARK'S FEATURED ARTICLE OF THE WEEK - WHEN YOU GET DOWN, LET YOUR DREAMS HELP LIFT YOU UP

We all get down now and then, but how do we get back up? Let your dreams help lift you up.

If you watched my vlog this week, you'll know that I openly talked about having a sad day recently. I'm an upbeat person and have a deep love and reverence for life. I delight in every new day with optimism and hope. And I believe in my dreams. But sometimes I get down. Don't we all? What's important is understanding how to get back up. It's different for everyone but taking a pause when you feel blue might give you some time to regain a new perspective and focus on your dreams. I think it's important to allow yourself a dark mood now and then, but if you find yourself dwelling in it for too long, it can become chronic. Hopefully, you don't have those days too often. I don't, but when they hit, they can hit hard. If you find them happening more often than you'd like, you might want to seek help. I'm an advocate for therapy at any age.

I've been a performer for most of my life. I started as a young girl. We had company on Sundays and after dinner, I'd sneak away to watch The Lawrence Welk Show. This was one of the only variety shows on TV at the time. Bubbles swirled as the beautiful dancers and singers twirled around the stage. I was mesmerized. I think this is when I first fell in love with show biz and the world of entertainment. I always loved dancing and would put on shows in our family living room in full regalia. Everyone would gather around to watch me. It was so much fun and brought a lot of joy into our home. I took dance lessons, joined the choir and theatre in Junior High School, and fell in love with the performing arts. I had dreams of dancing on the Great White Way. Broadway was my Oz.

My girlfriend's and I loved to play dress-up in my garage when we were children. Our home was a gathering place because there were a lot of us. My mother gave me some fancy dresses, jewelry, and high-heels and set up an old dresser for us. We'd play in that dusty garage for hours. Then, we'd set up the woods in my backyard like a Barbie Doll House and pretend to all live there. We were dream girls.

When we finally "grow up", we think all of our dreams will come true, but that doesn't always happen. It's maturity and wisdom that give us the tools to learn how to adapt to the fact that not everything we desire can become ours, and some of our dreams don't quite look like they did when we were young. We get our hearts broken, we lose jobs, and we lose loved ones, but we can never lose ourselves or our dreams and desires. They are what we strive for. They are ours forever.

The core of my mission statement with my brand is to age gracefully through knowledge and self-awareness. When we find ourselves in the depths of our own sorrow, it's our self-awareness that can be our saving grace. We can refocus our thoughts, be our own objective observer and understand what we really need to be happy. We have control over that, and that's powerful.

I am a performer. That is what makes me happy. So, I'm going to get out my glitz and glamour once again and take the stage of my own life. I never really left.

Embrace your dreams, embrace your sorrows, and embrace yourself. The show must go on!

Peace and Love,

Skylark

At 60 and Beyond, not all of our dreams will come true, but some of them will. It's up to us to allow them to find their way back into our lives and help lift us up.

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SKYLARK'S PICK OF THE WEEK - THE JAMES STREET PLAYERS

The James Street Players is a local community theatre that has produced popular Broadway musicals in its air-conditioned home at the Babylon United Methodist Church. They are in their 53rd year of providing entertainment for the public. Each year JSP performs two family-oriented musicals or plays accompanied by a full pit orchestra. The Players rely on a broad base of talented and creative local volunteer actors, dancers, musicians, and technicians of all ages. After many years of summer productions designed expressly for young people, their enthusiastic youth membership now produces, directs, and performs its own summer show.

JSP's history is a long and rich one. Over the years, they have taken pleasure in exposing their audiences to the delightful surprise of the live theatre experience. The James Street Players Ensemble has performed from Brooklyn to Patchogue, including many Babylon Village Fairs, the Babylon Masonic Lodge, and also at various local libraries and for professional organizations. They pride themselves on a high standard of production and have proven to be an outstanding training ground for their members, several of whom have gone on to enjoy successful careers on the professional stage and in film and television.

The James Street Players is a non-profit organization that has been bringing affordable live theater to the Babylon, Long Island area for more than HALF A CENTURY (yes, +50 years!) - always with full orchestration. Every member is a volunteer. See you at the theatre!

Visit www.jamesstreetplayers.org or call 631-649-4140 for more information. You can also send an email to info@JamesStreetPlayers.org.

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SKYLARK'S SONG OF THE WEEK - IRVING BERLIN'S "THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS" PERFORMED BY ETHEL MERMAN IN ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

LYRICS

There's no business like show business like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing, everything that traffic will allow
Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow

There's no people like show people, they smile when they are low
Even with a turkey that you know will fold, you may be stranded out in the cold
Still you wouldn't change it for a sack of gold, let's go on with the show

The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk
Are secretly unhappy men because
The butcher, the faker, the grocer, the clerk
Get paid for what they do but no applause
They'd gladly bid their dreary jobs goodbye for anything theatrical and why?

There's no business like show business and I tell you it's so
Traveling through the country is so thrilling, standing out in front on opening nights
Smiling as you watch the theater filling, and there's your billing out there in lights

There's no people like show people, they smile when they are low
Angels come from everywhere with lots of jack, and when you lose it, there's no attack
Where could you get money that you don't give back? Let's go on with the show!

You get word before the show has started that your favorite uncle died at dawn
Top of that, your pa and ma have parted, you're broken-hearted, but you go on

Yesterday they told you you would not go far, that night you open and there you are
Next day on your dressing room they've hung a star, let's go on with the show!

SKYLARK'S INSPRIATIONAL QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

- Mae West