March 8 – Happiness

227/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me.  Do you have a song in your life that just moves you? Or lyrics that get at the very being of who you are? I love music but more for the beat or melody – rarely for the lyrical content. However, there is one song that lyrically gets at how I want to and try to live my life. It’s called “Happiness” and it’s by an artist that I do admire and it’s very apropos that I choose today to post this gratitude blog as the singer “liked” one of my social media posts today. Although I want to keep the celebrity gratitude posts to a minimum (thus far, I can count them on one hand), I must honour Vanessa Williams. I’ve always thought highly of the first black Miss America and also the first Miss America to be dethroned as she became the most successful beauty pageant winner thus far in history in what she accomplished since her pageant days – television, movies and music (the latter by far my favourite). I mean, what a way to not let negativity destroy oneself and ignore all of it and become the best possible person ever – responsible for your very own Happiness! It may sound like I have digressed but no, this is about her song “Happiness” which gets at my core. With lyrics such as “Life is as good as I make it, I can’t sit around while you make it for me” and “I’m the only one responsible for me having fun and you can’t take my Happiness” is exactly how I live my life – I am the one responsible for what happens to me and I try to live my life trying to be happy. I also try to avoid as much negativity as I can. Time and time again, the lyrics of this song come back to me and remind me that I am in control and I can either feed into things or move on into my own Happiness as I’m the only one who can fulfill myself. Yes, sounds like an inspirational poster but isn’t that what most songs are about and why they move us. This is my song. This is my mantra. Thank you Vanessa Williams for bringing these lyrics into my life and reminding me to always be responsible for my own Happiness!

January 11 – the atypical Bowie post

171/365 – people to thank who have had an impact on me. I am not jumping on the David Bowie bandwagon as I can not say that I was influenced by his music. I got into his songs in the 80s with Let’s Dance and China Girl and only discovered classics such as Golden Years well after the fact. However, I was inspired by David Bowie’s sense of style and versatility – Women have their style icons but guys like me really don’t – especially guys like me who change their look so often and that was one thing David Bowie did. If you know me in person – especially after my awkward teen years – you know that I change my look so frequently that most people can’t keep track of it – I’ve had red hair and blonde hair (for 15 years!!) and blue hair, I’ve rocked all sorts of facial hair, experimented with contacts and glasses, played around with asynchronous, man-bunned, crazy curled, short cropped, shaved down hair. My clothes – don’t even begin to get me started. But each and every phase, it was David Bowie who made me feel “normal” – here was a guy who just kept on reinventing himself. A very cool guy who was fashionable before it was fashionable to be so. A guy who just epitomized coolness to me. A guy who was older by two decades but didn’t let his age at any given time define him Yes, I may not have been into your musical artistry but you inspired me with your visual artistry. In your honour, I’m gonna keep on reinventing and rocking my look well into my Golden Years!