a round of applause, in so many ways.

After my show tonight, I met a friend at the World Cafe Live in Philly to watch another friend of ours perform. A brilliant friend of ours. I have so many talented, dreaming, creative, and interesting friends–why, it’s enough to make a girl want to join in and make stuff, too, darnit.

I sat there watching him captivate the audience by being hilarious and interesting and quirky and, well, him–and I realized that this is it. Life. Sometimes it’s so literal. I mean, sometimes we are actually sitting in chairs, clapping and cheering for each other at the closing note of a song sung in flawless French.

And other times we are doing that, still, but in more subtle ways.

We are listening to someone tell us how they’ve really messed up and hate themselves for it. Or we see our friend fall in love with a person who is, oh my gosh, actually pretty perfect for them. Or we sit with someone as they wait to hear from the doctor. And through all of this, we remind them of who they are. Not by clapping now, though. No, we tell them in different ways that they are brilliant. Worthy of being listened to. Worthy of being loved. Worthy of belonging.

I like the part of life where we encourage each other. I don’t think we can do this enough. And just look around, you’ll see things to encourage in people just about everywhere, even if they can’t sing a song in perfectly accented French.

So there you go.

We’re worth cheering on; both onstage and off.

Let’s do this, then.