Full Transcript for Replay: Checking In w the Power of Presence

go home like once a month to check on everything, to make sure everything's okay, and the busyness of my schedule it is a blessing. But I hadn't been able to get home back to Atlanta as much as I would like to. And then there are times where I could have got on a plane to fly home, but I was so tired from doing eight shows a week that it was just best for me to get my weekly massage and go to bed, you know what I mean. So this week I said, you know what, let me go on home. I want to see what's up at my house. I get home, check my plants. One of my beautiful plants gone dead. Okay, and they are on this cool watering system. But when I opened up the water reservoir, it was totally empty, and I was like, well, you haven't been home in a while to really check on it, and how long did you think this water was going to be in this reservoir. It's a self watering system. Great, great for folks who are I love the self watering system because I have overwatered plants, you know, but this particular system, it does the perfect amount of watering for plants. Now, I could be going somewhere here you can underwater or overwater, and so I just I hadn't been home, and so one of my favorite plants. Oh, it was gorgeous. It was absolutely gorgeous. It's one of the plants where it just continues to grow and just kind of like it grows over the table. It's like a waterfall. It's beautiful. So I was able to put water back in the reservoir, take the dead leaves off, and hopefully when I get back, I'll see some buds, some more budding. Cool. Get home, and I spend my amazing time at home. I'm feeling refreshed. I am feeling rejuvenated. I am feeling restored because I was able to sleep on my own mattress that I absolutely adore. Miss Tina Knowles has always said I probably have said this on this podcast at least once. She told us, invest in your mattress, especially that's where you're going to be spending a lot of hours in the day, So invest in your mattress. I'm proud of my mattress. I feel like it's amazing. I love my bed. Okay, cool, Anyway, I'm refreshed, I'm rejuvenated. I'm able to walk around my own neighborhood, gets some sun and just ooh, drive my own vehicle. It's the little things that I have been missing. Great. I get on a plane to come back here to New York, and I flew into Newark, and yes, I know about the news of air traffic control and outages, but I fly into Newark all the time when I travel, and it's been great. Let me tell you why I like Newark. It's quiet. The drive from Manhattan into Newark. I don't know why I love it better than the drive from like where I live here in New York to LaGuardia or JFK. I think the drive to La Guardian and JFK it just makes me too anxious. The drive to Newark, it's just peaceful. The experience to me me has been peaceful. We're in the air about to land at Newark and the pilot comes on and says, hey, we've got to circle a little bit. Those of y'all that fly, if you fly frequently, sometimes that happens. Okay, you know that when the pilot says we got a circle, it ain't ten minutes, sometimes thirty minutes. I don't know. So I'm like, okay, cool, We're gonna be fine, y'all. He then comes back on the intercom and says, we actually have to get some gas, so we're gonna land in Norfolk, Virginia. He's like, we're gonna gas up. I'm gonna have you back in the air. I'm like, okay, cool. Show starts at death becomes Circle show starts at seven. It's gonna be great. I can get to the theater at six thirty for a seven o'clock show. I don't like to do that. I've never done that because I need at least an hour from makeup and prep, my breathing and my stretching. Some people literally walk in the door at six thirty for a seven o'clock show. My hand claps to y'all for that. I can't do that. I can, but that's not my desire. Okay, I just mentioned I just told you guys my routine. Oh my gosh. We land in Norfolk and it goes from thirty minutes to an hour. Now, mind you, they have gassed up the plane. It's gone from like one hour to hour and a half, two hours, three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours by the time but about four o'clock rolls around, I'm like, I'm not gonna make it to the lunfont Tan theater. Y'all. I do this routine. I have done this routine quite often. I've never missed a show because of a flight to diversion. I have never really missed a work event period because of I've never missed a flight for work. Anybody that books me for the past twenty five years knows that you book me, I'm going to show up. If I don't show up, it's because I one. I think one time I was literally in the hospital, like sick with something right, or I'm just sick. And if I say I'm sick, I'm really really sick. So I've never missed work. I've never you know, I just I don't play that. That's just this. I guess it's still the school of Matthew Knowles. I don't know, but that's just I tried not to. I try not to do that. So, yeah, we missed the show. I missed the show. I'm gutted. I am disappointed. I'm like, oh my god, but I'm so thankful for an understanding management team of death becomes her totally understood. So it's that that was that was a lesson learned, you know. So I don't know if I'll be home anytime soon because I don't want that to happen, or maybe try flying into logorder or JFK. I don't know. But new work has never been an issue for me. Again, I have seen the news where it's been about outages and air traffic control issues, but all right, So I finally experienced it. That same week, I was all soul needing to attend a close friend of mine her mother passed, and I wanted to be at the funeral. I was torn because you know, I'm under contract in this show many times. I've been under contract for the past again, twenty five years of my life, and I was torn between how many moments am I going to miss by being able to be present for someone in my life. I've missed enough birthdays, I missed enough funerals, I've missed enough graduations, y'all. I even missed my brother's first

sermon he preached. Now he understood because that year we filmed the Boot Delicious video. He was totally understandable. But me as his sister, as his baby sister, whom I adore my brother, I was like, I cannot believe I'm missing my brother preach his first sermon while I'm on set shaking my thighs. It's a great video. I love those Christian Dior shades. Those are I wish I could find those. Those are vintage. So yeah, that's what was going on while filming Boot Delicious. My brother preached his first sermon. But you guys, everything worked out. Everything worked out, as you can see all as well. But at this point in my career and in my life, I'm like, man, how many more moments of being present will I miss? And that's the sacrifice of the business of show. That's the sacrifice of I chose this life. So I'm not asking for pity, sympathy anything, but I guess I'm understanding of I guess where my mindset was. And I did get permission, of course, again from management of death becomes her to attend this funeral. I adore what I do. I adore the show, and I'm so glad that I was allowed to go to my friend's mother's funeral and it meant the world to her. And the person that did the eulogy looked over at the role that I was sitting on, and there were some other friends and stuff of the family sitting on that role, and he said these words. He mentioned the words ministry of presence. Sometimes your presence is comforting to someone. You might not even have the right way words. You probably can't even get to them in that moment at the funeral or even a party, or their first sermon. Or a graduation. But as long as they can look over and see you, you never know what that does for a person. When Beyonce and Kelly came to my opening night, Doctor Amira and Brittany Tims Tina, I felt so anchored by their presence. I was like, I don't care what happens tonight, I am going to be okay the ministry of Presents And there are times where people have even looked at me like you're Michelle Williams, why are you here? What are you doing here? And I'm not saying anyone said that last week, but there are times I have shown up two different things for people in my life, and I don't let what I do or who I am in quotes. I don't want that to ever get in the way of showing up and being there for people that I love, at least not at this time in my career now. Sometimes it's just not possible. It's just not possible. But I'm thankful that this time it was possible for me to show up and be present so perfectly. You can take inventory of your life about maybe people you can show up for a little more, or take inventory of people where you're like man they can show up for me more, or if they don't, you probably might even have to assess how much you show up for them. So us this older woman. One day, she told me that I was ministry in motion and literally just me being able to show up and be present. It's just something that I treasure, something that if I can show up, I'm gonna show

up, all right. So that was Thursday of last week. Friday, we are off because it's fourth of July. Death becomes her did not have a show, So where did I go? So I went from the city where I was in for this funeral, flew to Washington, DC to see cow Boy Carter. The tour insane. Absolutely, I just just have no but I do have words. Beautiful, the visuals, y'all. She's she gives vocals every tour she's done. But I feel like this tour beyoncey uh. There are many times I had a Baptist fit. If you want to know what a Baptist fit is is where you just get to your arms, just get to flailing uncontrollably. You yell, you scream, You're just just in awe. Listen, y'all. I love because I feel like she's so gifted vocally too, that sometimes I personally I just, oh, I just want to hear what she's gonna do. I just want to know what vocal choice she's gonna use, where is she gonna place this run, what is she gonna do with the texture of her voice? Here? Baby? It gave me everything I needed. You hear me. It was a joy. It was a joy. It was a joy. She really really, really, really really really this did I say? The sound like, who designed the sound for this tour? It was beautiful, The visuals, the wardrobe, my god, and then vibing to Miss Tina in the suite absolutely agredible. Oh of course blue okay, you can't forget blue, roomy, absolutely adorable, Okay, everybody, band, dancers, Honey Balenciaga, and just all right. So that was my week, all right. Then I came back to New York to do to show Saturday and two show Sunday, a full, productive, amazing week. Dallas on yesterday, which is supposed to be my day off, but Dallas, and then today sharing with y'all my journey this past week, the journey of showing up for the people you love. The Cowboy Carter tour that was my first time being able to go to the tour because I'm in a Broadway musical and it's been difficult. But I'm glad that there was a show on the fourth of July. There was a show last night. Actually, like I said, that was on the day off, but I had to go to Dallas. I can't wait for y'all to see what that was about. But y'all, it was also amazing to be around people who bring me peace. And I saw a friend of mine post something the other day. I could be paraphrasing, but they it said something whoever brings the most peace gets the most time, and that hit me so deep. There are people that I love. There are relationships that I don't talk about a lot publicly because I just hold those relationships near and dear to me. And there's sometimes I'll name some names, you know, because of experience, I name some names just now. But sometimes I don't go into the totality of those relationships because I'm like, man, that's the only thing that I get to protect kind of. But I've got some amazing, amazing folks, and I always in some episodes, I've always said what my prayer is for y'all, is that you also have safe people, people that you can trust, people that you can confide in, people that you can laugh with, like uncontrollably. I have also been seeing these amazing videos and reels about people who are during near smacking each other upside the head because they're laughing so hard and their arms are just going everywhere and they're just a key key and just laughing uncontrollably. Those are the relationships that I want to keep. The relationships that fortify me. What do I mean by fortify? Relationships that strengthen me, Relationships that are challenged in a way, Relationships that are inspiring. You should never be jealous of anyone in your circle. They should always be inspiring you. You should never be competing or comparing yourself to anybody that's in your circle. Maybe there are some people in my life that make me tighten up, people that make me say, oh, oh oh, I can do this a little better, I can tweak this here. And I have a confession to make. I think sometimes when I see Be on tour, it does make me feel like, man, she kept going in music and didn't let any naysayer stop her, And I'm like, why did I let things stop me musically, and I'm like, I really got to sit with that. I'm gonna go to therapy about it. So yes, I have teased new music and I know that I can do it. I do know that I can do it. So we'll see that happened to me on the Renaissance tour and Cowboy Carter's like, she would not be doing what she's doing had she stopped and listened to what the critics had to say or the naysayers or the haters. She there's no way she'd be in stadiums right now had she buckled and you know, listened to what people had to say. All right, So that's my confession. We'll talk about that later. But yeah, back to being around people who bring me peace, and those were the people that I was able to be around this past week, and guess what, I'll do it again. Also this week, I am taking some time away from the show, not due to illness or a funeral, but I've got some personal days that I hadn't taken, and they're like, Michelle, you got to take your personal days. And again, just I'm thankful for a strong work ethic. Again, if I'm not sick or some type of emergency. I want to be there. But this week I am excited to report that I get to take a few days away. It's my birthday month, and I'm excited about that. I get some more time later on in the summer, and we'll see what happens. I know a lot of y'all have been asking me how long my run and Death becomes Her the musical is, and just know that I'll be there a while longer. I'll say that the reason why I'm not saying anything is because producers haven't said anything, and I'm not making no announcements that they haven't made. Okay, So when the time comes, you all will know my departure date. Okay. But for those of y'all wondering, lurking, and asking, just know you've got time to come back and see your girl, or you have time to come see me. If you haven't been here, all right, you can go to Broadwaydirect dot com. They have amazing specials sometimes. If you go to Death becomes Her our official Instagram page, you can find cool specials or discounts or what's going on for this time. It's been an amazing run. It's been an amazing time. I cannot wait to tell you the plans for later. We'll see, but it's been a joy of being in death becomes to the musical. It's like I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave. So we'll see what happens. But thank y'all for allowing me to share my time of travel and what I've just been thinking. I'm forty five years old and I am just I just I want to be there for people. I don't want to continue doing things that keep me from being present from my friends and family and the people that mean the most to me. All right, So I hope this makes you think I and you know, take inventory of the people in your life. And again, whoever brings the most peace gets the most time. Thank y'all so much for listening to my travel chronicles this week and just kind of what I've been thinking about. We will see you again next week, all right, Thank you again. I cannot I can't continue to do this without y'all's love and support. Black Effect would not continue to bring me back because y'all are just really really supporting me, and I really really really appreciate it. All Right, we'll talk again. Soon. 00:30:53 Speaker 1: Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeart Radio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.