Someone New to Listen To

“I bet you wanted to be older when you were 11 too!” stormed Beatrix yesterday about something or other. And she’s right, of course. When I was her age, all the theatre people and artists I admired were much older, and doing really cool creative things, and I could not wait for that to happen for me.

Fast forward….

This afternoon, a bunch of neighborhood leaders and charter school stakeholders had yet another disagreement about a historic Hausler church that will be lost as a result of that school’s expansion. Meanwhile, I sat in an old AME church that had at the last minute made room for the final Songs of Hope concert (which otherwise performs in Boyd Park, but was rained out) and saw kids from all over the world, who had come to live together for 6 weeks and make music and friendships, sing their hearts out.

This weekend, while adults on a Facebook complain bellyached about a bike lane being closed for a few days, the Circus Juventas kids flew on flying brooms, swung from the Russian Cradle, lept onto teeterboards, dropped from silks, and generally gave their whole bodies (and hearts!) to incredible circus performances in TWISTED.

And as we have a political system that gets harsher and harsher every day, that group of Songs of Hope kids singing: 

Let me in, Let me in, immigration man 

Can I cross the line and pray 

I can stay another day

seemed all the more poignant, and even more indicative that we, as adults, don’t seem to know what we are doing. 

The concert tonight ended with a new song that Mayor Carter’s daughter (Beatrix’s age) had written herself. At the end of it, I told Melvin that he could likely stand down as mayor, and just let his daughter do it. I was kidding, kind of. But I can’t help but think that the amazing kids I was around this weekend might not have more of the answers than the rest of us do (and maybe I should have trusted myself a little ore when I was young).