Friday, December 13, 2019

Day 5 Thankfulness and Giving


Today, I want to focus on the arts and how thankful I am for them. Music, books, dance and writing have all played a huge factor in my life and taught me so much.

When I was a child and the world around me would be chaotic, I would reach for books to find a way to escape.  Without these books I would not have the imagination that I have today. It is magical to me when an author can put words to page and from this, I can recreate their vision in my own mind, to be able to get lost in the story. One of the best short stories I ever read was about a cherry tree.  The story was entirely written to describe the tree from all the senses.  As I read the story, it was as if I was there with the author seeing, smelling and touching the tree; it was amazing.

Music is a mix of memories and a form of escape for me also. When I hear a piece of music, I can be taken back to the exact moment when I first fell in love with the piece. There are pieces of music that will allow me to vent my anger, to cry out sadness, and to boost my feelings of happiness. Music allows me to escape into my feelings and to work through pain.  Music is a form of therapy for me and I would be lost without it.

I would never have thought dance would have become so important in my life, but it was a wonderful accident.  What was a whim, a single class to be a fun experience turned into seven years of learning discipline, how to be in-tune with my body, and the art of performing in front of an audience.  Dance allowed me to challenge myself; I was not perfect, I was not always even good, but I continued to push myself to learn to keep trying, which was a good metaphor for life.

Finally, if you are still following along with this blog and still reading, you will already know that writing is a wonderful way for me to work through how I am feeling.  Writing has helped me through many difficult times in my life; writing to my Dad’s best friend to share memories to help me heal and mourn his passing; writing about my thankfulness to help me refocus to what is most important; it teaches me to take a moment, to think things through and understand how and what I am feeling in the moment.

For these reasons I am, and will forever be, thankful for the arts and for what they have taught me and how they have healed me.

To show my appreciation and thankfulness for what I have today, I have made a $20.00 donation to each of the following charities:

Ottawa Humane Society (www.ottawahumane.ca )
The Sato Project (www.thesatoproject.org)
Guide Dog Fund (www.guidedog.org )
Poppys Hedgehog Rescue (www.poppyscreche.org )

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