Nadia Lynn

The imagery of the opening line always gets me. I think because I see myself in it. A man in the woods. An off-key piano. Singing softly. I know the lyric isn't about me, but it feels like it could be. There's something comforting about the idea that the piano is off key and doesn't need fixing. That it can just exist as it is. Maybe that's why this song resonates so much. I've never been particularly interested in doing just what I'm supposed to. I've always found myself gravitating toward people, places, and ideas that sit a little outside of what's expected. The communities I've felt most at home in have always valued authenticity over perfection, vulnerability over hiding, and emotional honesty over neat categories of feeling.

My sister is 7 years older than me and Mama's Gun was the soundtrack to her high school years. She had the CD and I would lay in her bed at night and ask her to sing Green Eyes with me. She is an amazing singer - always on key (a little different than the man in the woods) and I definitely was not, but she sang it with me and to me many nights. I remember sneaking into her room and reading through the Mama's Gun CD leaflet, taking in each lyric and feeling connected to Ms. E Badu.

This is one of those songs that you belt when you're young and then you think twenty five years later, "no wonder I believe what I do about education." In my teacher training I watched teachers talk about coloring using a specific amount of colors and coloring animals in the "right" color, but come on - there's so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the morning sun and I see every one. Shout out to Jameson Ranch Camp and Ross for instilling a sense of 70s justice and joy at camp each summer in my childhood.

This song was shared with me by a teen I once mentored. I always say, if a teenager wants you to listen to a song and they're willing to share it with you, do not hesitate! This is them letting you into their world and it should not be taken for granted. Each week after mentoring teens I always walk away feeling changed myself. There's something deeply human about adolescent development. Human in the way the liminal phase is beautiful, soul crushing, and identity defining all at the same time.

This one is another sneaking into my sister's room when I was little, but this time I found a book - The Autobiography of Assata Shakur. What I read changed the way I view life and laid the blueprint for how I think about systems. My disruptor spirit, my relentlessness for justice, and my path for liberatory learning is grounded in Assata's story.

I can remember it perfectly (because I have a photo) - me and my college roommate who I'd known since first grade at the Lenka concert. Me in a red and white polka dot shirt and her in her favorite purple zip-up hoodie. The roommate who, in one of our college classes where we were learning about using I-language for conflict resolution, used the moment to express her frustration with my messiness! The mess maybe hasn't changed, but her honesty and bravery in that moment helped create the pathway in my mind that says we can resolve conflict, we can do it without judgement, and it has become the basis for how I've supported many kids to express themselves over the years.