Cadre Today - The Anxiety Of Mispronunciation

In the spring of the grass and the fading of the breeze not my body sees these aren't just knobby knees. They're animals like the trees. Good morning, Matthew. My neck is graceful and long. Emily. Good morning, Sarah. Nice to see y'. All. Hey, Newfie lover. Sue, how are we doing? Good morning, Emily. That's a song called I Can Dance from the musical Giraffes Can't Dance. Any parents out there have kids who like the book Giraffes Can't Dance? I, as a human without human children, I am out of the norm of knowing what books are, the big books for little kids nowadays.

But lucky enough, I get to musicalize some of them every once in a while. Like dragons, Love tacos. Never heard of it, but by golly, that's a popular kids book. And Giraffes Can't Dance, which we just had callbacks for at Sages Theatre Company last night. Our wonderful director, Keemani Hill, was spending some time last night teaching the actors in the room some Swahili as part of their callback process. But I'll tell you more about that in a second. I want to say good morning, Cadre. How are you doing?

I hope you're doing great. If you're not doing great, please know that that's okay too. Please know you still are incredibly worthy. Please know you are still incredibly capable and you're probably going to change some people's lives today. I don't say dramatic things. I say honest things. Dog hair. And that's one of the gifts we try to offer you in the Cadre sphere. The reminder that you in your current state have great capacity to impact you, to impact others. Awesome. 2025. Good morning, my friend.

So I'm glad that I'm here. I'm glad that you're here. I know what I know and I care about you. So back to Swahili, Kimani. After we sang through some music and danced some dance, Kimani, through call and response, through listen and repeat, was inviting the young people in the room to go, hey, learn some Swahili jambo. One by one, the kids jambo, jamboed with each other, saying hello, hello. And then in Swahili, how are you? How are you? And there are moments where you could see on the young people's faces that they didn't want to pronounce words wrong.

They wanted to get it right. Yet they would make mistakes. And when they would make mistakes, they would most of the time spend some time feeling bad. And they would put that badness on the inside, you could see them get red. You could see them get anxious physically. But two or three kids did something really special. Number one, one kid stopped and said, kimani, can you say it again? I want to get it right. That was their quote. Can you say it again? I want to get it right. And Kimani, syllable by syllable, walked through pronunciation with the young person.

Another kid said the line, and the kid was like, kimani, was. Was. Was that correct? Kimoni was like, yes. It was like, okay, great. But this one was my favorite. At the end, there was this moment of silence. Everybody had gone through, and a young person asked Kimani, what. What. What language are we speaking in? Kimani said, swahili. I loved all three of those moments because they were moments where the young person dealt with the energy that they were feeling, the doing something new energy, the anxiety moment, the nervous system responding to impetus that is different than the norm.

And they responded to it by saying, I am acknowledging that this energy is good, that this newness is good, that this energy I'm feeling anxiety, excitement is good. How often do you do that when you're in a space of newness, a space of unfamiliarity, and you walk in and you acknowledge it, right? The energy doesn't go away. It's not about making the anxiety of newness go away, but it's about saying, yeah, I'm going to acknowledge it because there's fruit on the other side. There's something good in experiencing something new.

These young people taught us that. They said, hey, how do I walk into spaces where I'm going to be challenged with experience that is not my own, that is not of my creation, and then walk out connected to a greater community, connected to a greater understanding, connected to a greater liberation from what is right and what is wrong? It's a really cool gift. I invite you today to. When you are in a space of not knowing the answer, of not being the holder of what is seen as being the knower or the holder of power, to walk in with curiosity and courage and go, yeah, thank you for providing me the space to be new, to be student, to grow, to succeed, to fail, to try.

And in that moment, we move forward. There was a moment last night where, as I was teaching the music, there's a segment that goes, a go a me ago a me a. And as I was reading the music, it's written phonetically, and I started saying, ago a me ago a me. And Kimani corrected me. And I had this moment of. And in that moment, I took a breath and I said ame and then Kimani said ago and I said ame and we started this call and response and all the young people in the room joined in. I initially felt foolish.

I as one of the leaders in the room I mispronounced words. Kimani provided me the space to not only learn but to invite others how to learn. I still felt the anxiety and the foolishness and I moved through it to a really beautiful space. So I say ago you say a me ago. I heard you out there. Awesome. 2025 says in a space of unknowing right now. Needed to hear this and also with you as we play out today. I hope you have a good one. I'll cue up the ago Amay section so you can sing it with us. Here we go.

And how now I know I'll find a way Cause I hear my body say just a go a man a go a go a go Sam.