The arts are more than a hobby, they are a way of life. The arts bring people together, they make sense of this senseless world, and capture every moment, every emotion, every thought, good or bad, and turn it into something beautiful. Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. There are videos of me as early as four making up songs and singing them into the mirrors of bathrooms. But my love for music really began when my mother took me to see a symphony. I knew at that moment, watching the conductor's baton fly into command of this huge melodious ship of music, I wanted to be on that stage one day. The strings have a way of echoing emotions, of bringing them out and letting them go. I wanted to do that. Two years later I began viola, and have never looked back. Now as a senior, I have seen the importance music has had throughout my life. Not only has it been a community builder and instrument for growth, music has also been my anthem of hope in hopeless times. The arts are not just some brushstrokes on a page, just some notes on sheet music, they all paint a picture of what it means to be human. Take Agbekor from the Ewe people of West Africa! Their use of polyrhythms may seem like chaos to our ears, and cause chaos in our brains when we try to understand them. But to the Ewe people, this represents the chaos of life. If they can play this music, embrace the agitation of it, the tension of it, then they can face whatever chaos and tension they encounter in their daily lives.. It’s just music! I have seen how the arts, specifically music, impacts my life. I went through a season of chaos in my own life, a season where the next day I wasn’t sure would come for my loved ones. How was I able to keep going? Music became my voice. It drowned out the sound of voices yelling, it drowned out the darkness building in my mind. It became a way of taking the grief and hurt presented to me on all sides and creating something beautiful, something worth listening to and worth getting up for. The impact of music on me is a gift I don’t want to keep to myself. As I begin my journey towards my dream, using music as a tool for hope and healing for others, I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to see all that the arts have to offer. I want others to experience its intricacies and its ability to convert chaos into something beautiful. Each and every one of us is faced with difficulties, but the arts have a way of transcending this and I want people to have the opportunity to let the arts be their tool of healing.