She was the first person I knew to wear a beret. She sang songs about Paris. When I say I knew her, well, we never actually met, but she, Joni Mitchell, was my babysitter. Alone (I suppose you could say “unfettered”) with a turntable my brother left behind, I played the Court and Spark album again and again. I had memorized the words to each song, long before I knew what a free man in Paris would look like, or where Paris even was on a map. 

She was always there, the two hours between my hop off the yellow school bus and my mom’s return from work. Music never lets you be alone. Nor poetry, or any of the arts. Maybe that’s why I love them all so. For me, all a form of grace — it sits with you, until you can walk in it again. 

Maybe you’ll think it strange, but one of the first things I purchased at the Galleria in Edina was a green beret, made in France. But I think it’s perfect. This spinning of my worlds together, round and round, like the very music of my soul. 

We outgrow our babysitters, but not our need for care. I try to give it to myself, still. I hope you can do the same. Find your grace. In the right tempo. Walk in it. And then one day, “unfettered and alive” you find yourself in the dance.