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These are tough times. Pandemic. Divisive politics. Sad job losses. Faltering economy. Protests and unrest in the streets. Aging population. There are so many things we love to do but can’t. Like travel. Have large celebrations. Go to school. It’s enough to make you want to get back into bed and pull the covers up over your head. But there is no giving up. Life goes on anyway.

Art is a powerful way to lift ourselves up. Art has the capacity to heal. It expresses our better selves. It doesn’t matter what your passion is. Writing. Painting. Sculpting. Singing. Dancing. Making music. Gardening. Woodworking. All are needed. Now more than ever. We need to see the beauty in life even when it is expressing something sad or angry. Dedicate your passion to someone or something you love and share it with the world. Move yourself in a positive direction through art. If we heal ourselves, we will heal the world.

I am aging like everyone else, and I’ve had two surgeries so far this year. I may need a third. It was really, really threatening to get me down, then a friend, a fellow writer, urged me to write a story. I hadn’t written a story in about 20 years. I had been too busy going to college and working fulltime. I wasn’t sure I could write any more. Maybe I had lost the passion. I was too old. I no longer had anything to say. It took weeks just to bring myself to put the first words down on the computer screen. I just took it a day at a time. I feared I wouldn’t finish the story by the deadline. The more I wrote, the easier it got. Finally, I realized the process was about much more than writing a story or even showing myself that I could still do it. I was lifting myself up.

The process of creating and sharing my passion was healing. It was like finding the fountain of youth. It gave me purpose and excitement. It was only a story, but it was a beginning. I was doing something positive. Instead of saying “I can’t and “oh no another surgery, how can I get through it?” I was saying “I can” and “so what another surgery, I won’t let that get in my way.” I was enthusiastic to start the next project before I lost momentum and magic I had found in art.

Start your next project, whatever it might be. Find the magic in creating something that inspires you. It might be the most important thing you ever do for yourself. Then share it. Your art, your expression, might help someone else to do the same thing. I have a friend who creates ballet in the woods or his driveway, films it, then shares it on YouTube. Whenever I see it, I think Wow. We can lift ourselves up out of this quagmire. We can create the world we want.

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