The Supreme Court, A Frames, and Bluegrass: Bluegrass Music Festival, June 2025

I remember wanting a hysterectomy when I learned what that was. I think I was a teenager. I was so sure I didn't want children that I figured, why suffer having a period my whole life? I remember being motivated to have a career from grade school. I couldn't wait for graduate school. I didn't do much dreaming of weddings; I dreamed of having a BIG desk in a BIG office, with a BIG job.

I remember wanting to be a Supreme Court judge as young as 12 years old. When I went on a trip to DC with my mother and sister, I was so excited to be on the Supreme Court steps that I was almost in tears. I remember looking at the current Judges, and there was one woman, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; that was enough for me, it meant I had a chance. I wanted this career because the highest court in the land was a place where change could be made. I wanted to help society on a bigger scale. I wanted to make change. Later in my young life, I read many Supreme Court briefs.

Then, I read Justice Ruth Ginsburg's dissents, and I was changed. Her written words changed me. I heard a voice of dissent to the status quo, I heard a voice standing up for a higher standard of understanding, and for a sensitivity to nuance. I heard a voice risking ridicule and rejection to speak for those who couldn't speak for themselves, and I am forever grateful. I can't help crying as I write this. Without examples, we are lost. Thank you, Ruth.

I built my life around causes and career. When I was a kid, my causes were the wounded people in my family. I became psychologically organised around finding justice, having seen so much injustice in my young life. In my 20s and early 30s, working as a bartender and having a great time, my causes were, naturally, my romantic partners. My heart broke dozens of times for the people I loved. In my mid-30s, I started seriously thinking about a career. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to help people find justice.

The thing is, I also absolutely live for spontaneity, experiences, and, above all else, freedom. I ultimately chose freedom over law school at that time. I worked as a bartender in Florida and then New York City, and I wouldn't have changed it for the world. I learned so much about humanity, all of its depths of darkness, and all of its blinding light.

When I finally went to graduate school, I went for social work because it offers options for macro work, including government policy development, and even holding office. To my surprise, during grad school, I fell in love with clinical work, especially working with individuals experiencing traumatic stress. There is something about the intimacy and intensity of that work that took me right in. Years later, my therapist asked me if I was in love with authenticity, intimacy, and vulnerability. He nailed it. I was. I could still help people find justice, but they found it within themselves. For every "fuck you!" to an abuser, for every tentative, and tearful "I didn't deserve that," whispered in my office, I felt humbled and honored to be a part of that profound process. It never gets old. I don't feel numb to it. I stand with them in their power, every time. Sometimes I think of RBG and I smile inside. She would be happy with my choice.

So, after that Nick Cave concert in May, I felt inspired and motivated. It had been enough time since everything changed for me to feel capable again. I started to feel restless because I was no longer working 60-80-hour weeks. I had time, and I was coming out of the fog of grief. As I look back, I was still in the midst of a massive process of change, and I still am, but I started to feel human again. The goal I had at that Glass Beams show back in September was finally beginning to show up. I felt less like a ghost. I could see myself in the mirror again. I felt like a solid, physical thing ...and I needed a cause.

I've known my friend Eva since grad school. There is something about college and grad school friends that hits different. I adore my childhood friends and the wild-child days, don't get me wrong, but my graduate school friends just marked a new chapter in my life. Anyway, Eva and I moved up to Colorado together in 2019 to help open this behavioral health facility. Eva separated from the company a few years before I did. She values freedom as much as I do. Last year, she moved to a more remote area of Colorado and bought a true A-frame. She did this on her own, without really knowing anyone there. She's doing it, for real. She chops wood, she fixes things, and she will be digging herself out this winter! I loved this so much. I loved everything about it. I love laughing with her and going over all the ways she might die in this very mountain life.

In June, she messaged me that the Bluegrass Festival was coming to Telluride, which is near-ish where she lives, and if I wanted to go. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with the music cause yet, but I knew it involved saying "yes" to going to live shows and festivals as often as possible. So, I said yes.

It was so fun. I was surprised to hear that Bela Fleck was playing. I hadn't thought of him since the late 90s when I was in a band. He is a musician's musician, I guess. Eva and I had a great time. I knew I was on a road somewhere. I drove home to Edwards feeling like my old self, in my bones. I felt like my fearless, wandering, passionate, free, self, with the darkness and the light back in some sort of familiar balance.

I listened to music on the three-and-a-half-hour drive through the Rocky Mountains, moved, as I always am, by the dramatic cliffs cutting through the sky, screaming out their power and their ancient knowing, like a landscape of prophets. I felt lucky to live here. Lucky to wake up and go to sleep in the lap of these rock formations from the beginning of time on this planet. Lucky to feel deeply for the beings on this planet with me. I felt, then, and feel now, lucky to be fighting to help those who give every bit of themselves to create the music we depend on—those who risk vulnerability and exposure to pour their lived emotions into the vibrations that keep us connected and feeling—those who often get written off as casualties of the art, of the life. Let's help keep these fires alive.

#keepthefiresalive