Keep the Fires Burning

Get In! Let's go!

We conclude third grade this week and look toward an action packed, blistering summer, starting this weekend as Little Bean and I set off to glorious Maine to rock out with one of her favorite bands, Plush. We’ll meet the opening act, Sorrowfuse, and hopefully arrange her next interview with them.

There’s so much to look ahead to. Such amazing adventures. Epic explorations. We’ll fail and succeed and get dirty and fill our bellies. Somehow, for a reason I can’t put my finger on, this all feels like a new chapter - the library, the school and family, the music, this community. Something’s afoot. Something is different. I’m eager to see what that is.

And curiously, I was reminded this morning of a picture I took exactly six years ago, when Little Bean was three and a half. Maybe one of my favorite pictures of her, on the way to a pre-school ballet recital. Why does this look into the past have meaning for me today? Because I look at that picture now, and I can see her today.

I can see her today, and tomorrow and ten years from now in that picture. Her sass. Her curiosity. Her humor. All in one picture, taken on our old front porch on a sunny day many years ago. I look at that picture and I didn’t know it at the time - but it predicted where we’d be today, where we’ll be, who she is and who she’ll be.

That fire that burned inside her back then, burns even more intensely today and I plan on doing everything I possibly can to keep it raging.

Starting today. In Maine. My baby and me in a little club meeting young, female musicians that are role models for her and then getting our faces melted by them. We plan on being exhausted and hungry by day’s end, with our ears ringing and throats sore. But it’s all worth it as long as that fire continues to burn.

Will you come with us? Stay with us? Through all of that. Get in. Let’s go!