Reflecting on Activities I Did When I Was Little -Paige De Giovanni
This blog post is the result of a shower thought from last night. It's stupid I know, I get ideas about what to write at the weirdest times.
"All things art" as the caption on my art Instagram account says, is something very important to me. Although this obviously isn't the only thing, arts and other activities and passions I participated in or have had throughout my life have shaped me into the person I am today.
I like to define art as music, dance, drawing, singing, performing, anything you can do, that you can tap into your creative side on. I decided to take the liberty of writing about my relationship with the arts and other activities I did throughout my life and reflect on how they've shaped me as a person.
My creative journey starts when I was three. My mom put me and my sister into dance lessons. I did just about every type of dance from ballet to tap to hip-hop to jazz, even Irish step dancing. From a young age, I knew I loved the activity. I quickly stopped doing dance however around the age of five, when I got more into music and eventually playing other sports.
Around (probably) the age of five I started learning how to play drumkit. Doing this started my obsession with music and playing musical instruments. Although I'm extremely rusty at playing drum kit now, I can proudly play a standard rock beat on the drumkit I got for my sixth birthday.
Around this time as well, I started playing softball and soccer.
I played soccer until the second grade. I stopped when I broke my wrist like I wrote about in my last blog post, and now ironically I hate the sport, most likely due to having to play it in gym.
When I was seven, I began to draw insects from a drawing book I checked out at my school library and from there, I began to fill sketchbooks with god awful drawings. This is where my creative side came back out from my dancing days. I've been trying to draw ever since.
For some reason as well when I was seven I wanted to be a cheerleader??? I don't know what possessed me to do this but I cheered for two years and got bullied throughout both so I ended up quitting. So much for my long-gone aspirations of being a cheerleader.
Anyways, I played softball for over 10 years during my childhood and along with my love for music and art, my love for sports grew as well. I was the pitcher of my fourth-grade softball team (until a fifth-grader broke my finger at one of those fieldhouse field trips they let the elementary school kids go on), and I was super sad that I couldn't pitch the rest of the season. I met my best friend Cassie through softball and became closer to my other friend Jake who was forced to watch me play most games because his older sister was on me and my sister's softball team one year. Playing softball brought me new friends, a way to be active as a child, and the feeling of being part of a team.
In fourth grade, I started playing basketball, which became my new favorite sport. I started going to Sparta in fourth grade, cut off all my hair for the first time, and made an attempt of fitting in with the athletic kids and immediately got bullied in the process.
By sixth grade, I hit a really rough spot in my life and although not correlated, I quit softball and focused all my negative energy into drawing since I still had that to fall back on, while still playing basketball whenever the season came back around. I cut off all my hair again and then eventually stopped playing basketball as well.
This is where my sporty side died, and I became a music hobbit and spent all my time playing my saxophone and the ukulele (how basic of me), until seventh grade when I joined Colorguard.
In all honesty, Colorguard marks where my life began to change again for the better. It had everything I wanted wrapped in one: performance, dancing, and some form of athleticism. Although Colorguard and marching band are not sports, despite what band kids say otherwise, It had the feeling of being a sport, and something active that I truly enjoyed. I refound my love for dance, and a new love for spinning flags and rifles while moving around a football field. Because of colorguard as well I've become closer with some other people who did the activity as well, allowing me to do something I love with the people I love and care about the most. It also had a music aspect as colorguad is a part of the marching band and although I quit Colorguard, it began my want to be more involved with performance, something I found again and truly cared about.
And today, I'm trying to do just that. I've started to become involved with more community theatre shows with my refound love for performing, (I get to dance in the one I'm in currently which is super exciting) and I plan this year to try and become more involved with other ways of performing and expressing the activities I once enjoyed again.
My goal is to try and get better at drawing as well as playing my saxophone and to try to rekindle hobbies I had as a kid and maybe even pick up some new ones to try as I continue my life. It would be super cool to find a balance of doing everything I enjoy.
Hell, maybe I'll whip out my softball skills from five years ago again or something in the spring.
"All things art" as the caption on my art Instagram account says, is something very important to me. Although this obviously isn't the only thing, arts and other activities and passions I participated in or have had throughout my life have shaped me into the person I am today.
I like to define art as music, dance, drawing, singing, performing, anything you can do, that you can tap into your creative side on. I decided to take the liberty of writing about my relationship with the arts and other activities I did throughout my life and reflect on how they've shaped me as a person.
My creative journey starts when I was three. My mom put me and my sister into dance lessons. I did just about every type of dance from ballet to tap to hip-hop to jazz, even Irish step dancing. From a young age, I knew I loved the activity. I quickly stopped doing dance however around the age of five, when I got more into music and eventually playing other sports.
Around (probably) the age of five I started learning how to play drumkit. Doing this started my obsession with music and playing musical instruments. Although I'm extremely rusty at playing drum kit now, I can proudly play a standard rock beat on the drumkit I got for my sixth birthday.
Around this time as well, I started playing softball and soccer.
I played soccer until the second grade. I stopped when I broke my wrist like I wrote about in my last blog post, and now ironically I hate the sport, most likely due to having to play it in gym.
When I was seven, I began to draw insects from a drawing book I checked out at my school library and from there, I began to fill sketchbooks with god awful drawings. This is where my creative side came back out from my dancing days. I've been trying to draw ever since.
For some reason as well when I was seven I wanted to be a cheerleader??? I don't know what possessed me to do this but I cheered for two years and got bullied throughout both so I ended up quitting. So much for my long-gone aspirations of being a cheerleader.
Anyways, I played softball for over 10 years during my childhood and along with my love for music and art, my love for sports grew as well. I was the pitcher of my fourth-grade softball team (until a fifth-grader broke my finger at one of those fieldhouse field trips they let the elementary school kids go on), and I was super sad that I couldn't pitch the rest of the season. I met my best friend Cassie through softball and became closer to my other friend Jake who was forced to watch me play most games because his older sister was on me and my sister's softball team one year. Playing softball brought me new friends, a way to be active as a child, and the feeling of being part of a team.
In fourth grade, I started playing basketball, which became my new favorite sport. I started going to Sparta in fourth grade, cut off all my hair for the first time, and made an attempt of fitting in with the athletic kids and immediately got bullied in the process.
By sixth grade, I hit a really rough spot in my life and although not correlated, I quit softball and focused all my negative energy into drawing since I still had that to fall back on, while still playing basketball whenever the season came back around. I cut off all my hair again and then eventually stopped playing basketball as well.
This is where my sporty side died, and I became a music hobbit and spent all my time playing my saxophone and the ukulele (how basic of me), until seventh grade when I joined Colorguard.
In all honesty, Colorguard marks where my life began to change again for the better. It had everything I wanted wrapped in one: performance, dancing, and some form of athleticism. Although Colorguard and marching band are not sports, despite what band kids say otherwise, It had the feeling of being a sport, and something active that I truly enjoyed. I refound my love for dance, and a new love for spinning flags and rifles while moving around a football field. Because of colorguard as well I've become closer with some other people who did the activity as well, allowing me to do something I love with the people I love and care about the most. It also had a music aspect as colorguad is a part of the marching band and although I quit Colorguard, it began my want to be more involved with performance, something I found again and truly cared about.
And today, I'm trying to do just that. I've started to become involved with more community theatre shows with my refound love for performing, (I get to dance in the one I'm in currently which is super exciting) and I plan this year to try and become more involved with other ways of performing and expressing the activities I once enjoyed again.
My goal is to try and get better at drawing as well as playing my saxophone and to try to rekindle hobbies I had as a kid and maybe even pick up some new ones to try as I continue my life. It would be super cool to find a balance of doing everything I enjoy.
Hell, maybe I'll whip out my softball skills from five years ago again or something in the spring.
It's great to have all these amazing hobbies that you love. I also like the idea of a "shower thought."
ReplyDeleteI think it's really cool how you've gone through so many hobbies and you're able to reflect on how they impacted you.
ReplyDeleteIt's awesome how you try new things so often! I was a cheerleader for a brief period of time, too (we don't discuss those days), and I was involved in dance and drawing. I loved hip-hop when I was younger because I got to burn a lot of my energy dancing to One Direction (again, we don't discuss those days). I hope your show goes well, and I look forward to seeing what new activities you try in the future, Paige!
ReplyDeleteThis was such a nice comment! Thank you Paige!
DeleteWhat a post!! I like how open and honest you are about the progression of your interests and why and how they changed. I might have to do something like this soon.
ReplyDelete