jaidyn

Nobody is out on this bitterly cold Saturday morning in early February. Strong north winds have strewn trash cans and recycling bins and sometimes their contents onto Springfield’s yards and empty streets. Dead leaves race around in mad eddies amidst this detritus of styrofoam containers and bits of food, occasionally lifting off into a sky that is vast and impossibly bright and blue. 

On our way to her shift at a cheap local wings joint, 17-year-old Jaidyn asks if I play music. She plays saxophone, but when I ask her she tells me that is not the dream. The dream is to be a composer of classical music. 

I’ve never had anyone in my car, let alone a 17-year-old, share that dream. Awash in the agreeable novelty, we drift into a discussion of composers. Some we each already know and love. Others we introduce to one another. I tell her I want to share a Max Richter recording: Recomposed, his mash-up of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” She nods calmly, so I can’t tell if she’s interested. But then the music begins, and I notice her eyes shift: widening first, then narrowing. She cocks her head ever so slightly. 

“Oh, okay. Right. I see what he did. He took the one violin part in the original and spread it across all the violins….” She continues analyzing the composition live in real-time, but I can no longer follow, partly because it’s over my head but also because her casual display of extraordinary talent has plunged me into a dizzying torrent.

I hadn’t seen it coming. Such moments, when my narrow cup of stupidly superficial expectations suddenly overflows with the sheer volume of another person’s being are certainly the best part of this job. But more than that, they make this feel like the best job I’ve ever had or could want. Like ripples in a pond, they propagate, illuminating everyone I encounter, even when I’m not driving, as if from inside, as if by the secret dreams they keep safe and glowing deep in their hearts.

How lucky Jaidyn is to know her heart! And how brave to embrace it! I stumbled through most of my life, afraid of the voice of my heart. And, when I did happen to trip over it, I usually got up, dusted myself off, looked around furtively, and tried to creep away unseen, so challenging was it to the armored structure of my life to follow its call.

Jaidyn’s problem seems different. In every rapid simulation I run, I can’t see how this little brown girl from a low-income neighborhood in Springfield gets to do this thing she loves and for which she has such an abundant gift without getting a lucky break. I wish I could somehow deliver her lucky break. But I am at a loss. So, I merely thank her for sharing her dream and for being so inspiring. And I encourage her to tend to that dream like the most precious of seedlings. 

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