An award and a magical life

Today I was honored to be the first recipient of the Mildred W. Spicer Arts Fund Award, created to recognize a local person for outstanding service improving artistic opportunities for people with disabilities.  For those of you not in Charlottesville, Mildred Spicer created a Therapeutic Recreation program here over 30 years ago. I worked for her in VSA Arts until she retired last year. An annual award was created in her name and today was our first ceremony.

 I am still so very moved by this award. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, I had given a great deal of thought to what i would say in my acceptance speech.  I tend to be very wordy and had to keep asking myself, "what is the most important thing for me to say?"  and over time, I kept trimming my words down to what is my essential.

What came to me was that when i started out as a teenager playing music,  my dream was to become a rock & roll star. This is because  back then I thought that rock stars led these magical lives. And I wanted a magical life too.

All these years later, I  am no rock star, but I do have so much magic in my life that I thought only rock stars experienced.  Singing and playing with others, I get to see eyes light up when a happy memory is sparked, or a boy dancing with wild abandon to an old Elvis song, or the girl whose disability prevented her from participating without assistance -was able to play a drum with the help of her friend and how she laughed and laughed and gave us all that joy.

I told my friends today even if I were given a million dollars, I would still want to be doing just what I am doing. Wow, what a day!

In the picture above: Meredith Gunter, my friend and former colleague hands me my award while Mildred Spicer gives me flowers. Thank you everyone!