mountain.

"You never know what's around the corner. 

It could be everything. 

Or it could be nothing. 

You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain." 

- Tom Hiddleston 

oliver.

"He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. 

But he may also fly." 

- Lauren Oliver 

awesome.

"The truth is, everything is going to happen to you. 

You'll be poor. You'll get dumped. You'll lose someone you love. You'll be ridiculous. You'll make mistakes. Oh yes, you'll make mistakes. SO many many mistakes! 

Sometimes you'll feel completely lost.

But whatever happens, you'll always have yourself. 

Your sense of humor, your crazy theories, your love for life, your curiousity about others. Your ever-changing vision of the world - all those things will stay intact. 

And you'll realize that right when you think you're going to fall into pieces and crash on the floor, that there will be loving arms there to catch you, and whether that support comes from close friends or strangers, they will be there. 

Learn to recognize it, and give yourself over to those loving arms. 

Learn to see the magic of existence. 

Learn to follow all those invisible threads that you'll weave together by just being yourself, always progressing toward more light, more acceptance and more truth. 

You also need to know that you will be loved, and you'll be successful. 

And all those difficult moments that came before will protect you from being afraid. 

Stop worrying.  

You're going to see the world, and meet people, and learn to love them. 

You'll learn tenderness. 

Toward others, and toward youself. 

You won't be so afraid anymore. 

So don't be afaid sweetheart." 

- Unknown. 

paradise.

"I wish for the same thing I've hoped for since the beginning. 

I wish for a life so brave, so unpredicatable, so full of unexpected joys and unforgettable love that no box could possibily contain all my memories." 

- Chelsey Philop, Even in Paradise

 

don't.

"I know you've heard it a thousand times before. 

But it's true - hard work pays off. 

If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. 

If you don't love something, then don't do it." 

- Ray Bradbury 

bell.

"Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: 

rose picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. 

Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. 

A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark...

I hoard all those letters like treasure. 

One day I hope to fasten them end of end in a half-mile steamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship. 

It will keep the vultures at bay." 

- Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

top5.

This has been one of those perfect rainy Saturday's - quiet. 

This past week was full of work, classes, meetings and not one, but two fantastic dance gigs. I'm very pleased to annouce I'm a specialty dance performing on the show, MOTIVE, which airs on CTV. 

I'm slowly but surely getting better this whole "resting" thing and taking days off when I really get them. Audrey Hepburn once said, "I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel." 

It also gives me the precious time to plan, write, and plan for the coming week. 

PLUS, I get to write a new Top 5 for y'all! 

The Day Designer. 

Sometimes, you just gotta kick your own butt into shape. 

Today I took a deep breath and dove in to find out more about what I really want to do. I definitely have some fresh ideas, goals and am ready to process and put them into place. This little book just opened up the possibilities. Let's do it. 

Etta James. 

There's just something about dancing to this siren of song. Plus, her birthday was on January 20. 

Stay tuned for my level 1 dancers performing to her beautiful music in "Back to Basics" March 26/27 at Celebrities Nightclub. 

Hair. 

You guys, I've decided to finally once and for all grow my hair out into a long bob. It's time. 

Tuesday Grooveday. 

Step one, just go for it. I finally voiced and laid down the ropes to start my own dance class under Portia Favro Productions. Every Tuesday evening, my friend and I offer a heels cabaret and artistic direction class at one of our local studios for a reasonable price point. 

Although it seems simple, I found this very challenging. Every week, who knows if anyone will come? But it's worth the risk. Which leads me to...

Quote. 

Boom. 

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend. 

- P.

grace.

"Starting is humbling. 

Re-starting is even more so. 

But grace. 

Grace spurs us to try with full knowledge that we'll screw up. 

Grace catches us when we inevitably don't do things perfect.

But grace lets us try.  

Trying is hard and starting is humbling, but what's the alternative? 

Never growing or going? 

That doesn't sound like worship to me. 

Let's slap a smile on our faces and try, with the knowledge that we'll have to try again. 

It's all grace." 

- Jess Connolly

maurice.

"My big concern is me and what I do now until my time of death. 

That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. 

And also, I want to be free again. 

I want to be free like when I was a kid...where we just had fun." 

- Maurice Sendak 

wolf.

"A healthy woman is much like a wolf: 

robust, chock-full, strong life force, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving." 

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

boom.

That's all. 

maples.

"The time of the falling leaves has come again. 

Once more in our morning walk, we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept." 

- John Burroughs, "The Falling Leaves", Under the Maples. 

jack.

"The only people for me are the mad ones. 

The ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,

the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, 

but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, 

and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Aww!'" 

- Jack Kerouac, On the Road

word.

"I think I finally get why it's better to love and lose, than never love. 

And I think it has everything to do with the soul's circumference of itself. 

I think the soul, possibily existing, possibly immortal, is still very much naive. 

It needs great invisible food carried by emotion to grow, and this food is joy and suffering. 

I do not like that suffering is food for the soul, but I cannot deny that this is one of the more effective courses. And suffering is a food you eat without notice or prep. 

On your plate, in your belly before you know you sat down. 

I think that men who avoid love do so because they want to avoid suffering. 

Their souls have no texture or minor chord. There is nothing refined in them. 

For suffering refines one as well. There was my love, ended abrutly. Not I'm left eating this. 

As the days pass and as the soul digests, the palate seems to grow.

I no longer mock a man who keeps on his wedding ring. I understand people I've never met. Something of the pain unites us, makes us more human. 

What is this? What does this occur? Why should anything unite, cultivate, increase through pain? 

These mysteries and I would have missed them if I had remained my child in my emotions, and refused the love glorious that ulitmately led me to sorrow." 

- Stimie. 

#Word. 

mistaken.

"It's true, you are terrible at a lot of things. 

But there are a couple of things that nobody else does as well as you do. 

It drives me bananas that you will throw yourself away completely because of one or two things that you are wrong about you. 

That's what breaks my heart. 

You got to ignore those and lean towards the things that make you yourself. 

Forget everything else. Fake it. Fake your way upwards."

- Matt Berninger, Mistaken for Strangers (documentary)

individual.

"I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, 

you know, 

the indivdual, the person who doesn't conform." 

- Erykah Badu 

Word. 

allowed.

"You are allowed to be alive. 

You are allowed to be somebody different.

You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single things to anyone, ever." 

- Augusten Burroughs