The Strange Beauty of Destiny: Poi Dog Pondering’s “Thanksgiving”

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
– Paulo Coelho

Somehow I find myself far out of line
from the ones I had drawn
Wasn’t the best of paths, you could attest to that,
but I’m keeping on.
Would our paths cross if every great loss
had turned out our gain?
Would our paths cross if the pain it had cost us
was paid in vain?
There was no pot of gold, hardly a rainbow
lighting my way
But I will be true to the red, black and blues
that colored those days.
I owe my soul to each fork in the road,
each misleading sign.
‘Cause even in solitude, no bitter attitude
can dissolve my sweetest find
Thanksgiving for every wrong move that made it right.

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Adam Sultan

Thanksgiving For Every Wrong Move

There’s a certain magic to the way life unfolds. We often find ourselves standing at crossroads, questioning why we are being nudged in a particular direction. Sometimes, we resist. Other times, we go willingly. And then, one day, we look back and see the intricate, almost poetic pattern that our journey has traced.

Poi Dog Pondering’s Thanksgiving is a song that captures this sense of destiny’s quiet guidance—how life leads us through seemingly random twists, only for everything to make sense in hindsight. The song is not just about gratitude in the traditional sense; it is about embracing the winding road, with all its unexpected turns, knowing that even the detours have purpose.

The Forks in the Road

Life is never a straight line. It is a collection of moments where we are forced to choose—left or right, stay or go, hold on or let go. And often, in the moment, those choices seem arbitrary, unfair, or even cruel. The job we didn’t get, the love that slipped away, the unexpected opportunity that changed everything—these are the points where fate whispers, “Trust me.”

What makes Thanksgiving so deeply moving is its acknowledgment that we are shaped not only by the things we chose but also by the things we never saw coming. The song is a reflection on the way life’s currents push us forward, sometimes against our will, only for us to realize later that we were meant to arrive exactly where we are.

The Beauty of Looking Back

There is a moment in everyone’s life when they recognize the strange but undeniable order in the chaos. That is when gratitude becomes something deeper than just a polite sentiment—it becomes reverence for life’s unfolding. Thanksgiving captures this profound appreciation, not just for the joys we expected, but for the losses, the delays, and the redirections that ultimately brought us to something greater than we could have planned for ourselves.

We are travelers on a road that we don’t always understand, but in time, we learn to trust its twists and turns. And in that trust, there is peace.

Embracing Destiny with Open Arms

As we listen to Thanksgiving, we are reminded that every experience—every heartbreak, every unexpected shift, every moment of uncertainty—is part of a grand design. We may not always see the meaning in real time, but one day, we will. And when that day comes, we will be grateful for every step of the journey.

Because in the end, destiny’s path is not just strange—it is beautiful.

---

The Song That Found Her

Nayeli had spent most of her life feeling like an unfinished melody—beautiful but incomplete, waiting for a harmony that never arrived. Born to Afro-Indigenous parents in a small Southern town, she grew up knowing that the world preferred her to be quiet, to blend in, to make herself smaller. Music was her refuge, the only thing that never asked her to apologize for existing. She sang in secret, late at night when the house was still, her voice curling through the air like smoke from an unseen fire. But dreams felt like luxuries for girls like her—girls who had been told over and over that survival was more important than expression.

One day, on her way home from her third job, she saw it—a flyer, ragged at the edges, fluttering against a rusted telephone pole. “Orchestra Americana – Seeking Voices of All Backgrounds. No Experience Necessary. All Are Welcome.” She paused, rereading the words as if they might vanish the moment she blinked. All are welcome. A phrase she had heard before, but never truly believed. She stuffed the flyer into her bag and kept walking, her heart pounding harder than it should have. That night, she couldn’t sleep. What if this was the moment—the fork in the road she had been waiting for?

The audition was held in an old theater downtown, the kind of place with history stitched into its wooden floors. Nayeli nearly turned back twice, convinced she didn’t belong. But as she stepped inside, she saw something she had never seen before—a stage full of musicians as diverse as the world itself. A Lakota flutist played beside a Japanese taiko drummer, a hijabi violinist tuned her instrument next to a Mexican guitarist, and in the center of it all stood a woman with silver-streaked braids and eyes that saw everything. The conductor. She turned and met Nayeli’s gaze with a smile, as if she had been expecting her all along.

“Come in,” the woman said gently. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Nayeli hesitated, gripping the flyer so tightly that it crumpled in her palm. She had no prepared piece, no polished act. Just her voice. Just herself. She stepped forward anyway. When the conductor nodded, she closed her eyes and let the song rise from a place deeper than memory. It was raw, full of longing, shaped by every moment she had been told to be silent. The sound filled the room like a story being written in real time. When she finished, there was no applause, no immediate response—just a charged, heavy silence, the kind that only happens when something real has been shared.

Finally, the conductor nodded. “You don’t need to fit in here,” she said. “Here, we fit around you.” Those words cracked something open in Nayeli, something she hadn’t realized was locked away. She had spent her entire life trying to find spaces where she could belong, but for the first time, belonging wasn’t something she had to earn. It simply existed, waiting for her to step into it.

Rehearsals became her sanctuary. She learned to listen—to the way the cello hummed like distant thunder, how the trumpet could cry like a grieving soul, how the violin wove threads of sorrow and joy into a single voice. She was no longer just a girl with a song. She was part of something larger, something vast and breathing. For the first time, she wasn’t afraid of being seen. In fact, she wanted to be.

The night of the orchestra’s first performance arrived quicker than she had expected. The audience was a sea of faces, some familiar, some unknown, all waiting. She felt the old fear creeping in—the whisper that said she wasn’t meant for this. But then she looked around at her fellow musicians, at the conductor who had believed in her from the start, and she knew. She belonged here. She had always belonged.

When the lights dimmed and the first note rang through the air, Nayeli opened her mouth and sang. Not for approval. Not for validation. But because the song had always been inside her, waiting for the moment she would finally set it free. The music swelled, the orchestra behind her rising in waves, carrying her voice higher and higher until it was no longer just hers—it belonged to everyone listening, to every person who had ever doubted their own worth.

As the final note faded, there was silence—deep, electric, filled with the weight of something that had shifted. Then, the applause began, rolling through the theater like a storm breaking open. Nayeli stood there, breathless, tears burning behind her eyes. Not because they loved her voice, but because they heard her. They truly heard her.

---

The Song That Found Her: Another Verse

Amina always dreamed of being a part of something larger than herself—something that could speak her truth. Born into a Moroccan Muslim family, she had spent her youth constantly balancing the tightrope of tradition and modernity, identity and expectation. She was a musician, a violinist, but the world rarely made space for her kind of music. Classical orchestras had no place for someone like her. Folk music didn’t seem to know what to do with her either. She often played alone in her room, her violin weaving stories of distant lands, hopes, and heartbreaks. She longed for a place where she could be both whole and accepted.

One day, while browsing through a community board at her local cultural center, Amina spotted a flyer that spoke to something deep inside her. “Orchestra Americana: Seeking Musicians from All Walks of Life. All Sound is Valid.” The words struck her like a chord, vibrant and inviting, yet too surreal to be true. All sound is valid. Amina had never seen a statement like that—especially not in the classical music world. She decided, almost without thinking, to attend the audition. What did she have to lose?

The hall was filled with the hum of diverse instruments, from a sitar to a djembe, all playing a melody that blended seamlessly. Amina’s heart swelled at the sight and sound of it all. The conductor, a wise woman with a strong presence and a gentle gaze, smiled at her as soon as she entered. Without a word, she motioned for Amina to come closer. Amina set down her violin, feeling a mix of anticipation and fear. When the conductor handed her the sheet music, it wasn’t the usual classical piece she had practiced. It was something different, something alive. It didn’t ask her to play in any prescribed way. It asked her to play as herself.

Amina closed her eyes and played. She didn’t worry about being perfect. She didn’t try to fit her sound into any mold. Instead, she let her emotions guide the bow, the ancient sounds of Morocco blending with the sharp precision of classical violin. The room seemed to hum with her spirit, and when she finished, the silence felt like a mutual understanding between her and the orchestra.

The conductor approached her with a nod. “You’re just what we need. You’re part of this now.” Amina’s chest tightened, but in the best way. She had finally found a place where her sound didn’t just belong—it was needed, it was necessary. Amina found herself returning to rehearsals, each note played, every vibration of her violin, reinforcing the idea that her unique voice could indeed speak to the world.

When the night of the performance arrived, Amina walked on stage with a sense of pride she had never known. The lights dimmed, the orchestra tuned their instruments, and the audience fell silent. She lifted her violin to her chin, took a breath, and began to play—not for perfection, not for accolades, but because the music was inside her and it was time for the world to hear it. Her violin soared through the air, her melody joining with others from across the globe, each person’s sound weaving into the next, creating a powerful tapestry of humanity’s diverse voices.

The applause that followed was loud, but what struck Amina most was the look in the eyes of the audience. They were seeing her, all of her, in ways they had never been asked to do before. And for the first time in her life, she felt seen not just as a musician, but as a human being whose story mattered.

Takeaway

Both Nayeli and Amina’s journeys illustrate a universal truth: we do not need to shrink to fit into a world that does not recognize our worth. The spaces we are told to inhabit, the paths we are told to follow, are often far too narrow. True belonging, true community, happens when we find a place where we are free to be ourselves—where our voice, no matter how unique, is heard and celebrated.

The story of Orchestra Americana is about finding strength in diversity, about believing that the world is vast enough to hold every single story. Just as Nayeli and Amina came to realize, we must step into the world as our full selves, confident that the places we belong will find us, just as we will find them. True harmony doesn’t come from uniformity—it comes from the beauty of every voice joining together to create something far greater than the sum of its parts.

---