The Roots of Who We Are: Reflections on “A Gentler Way”
Welcome to a new year of Music in Conversation.
Last year, fifteen teaching artists explored the theme of EXTEND, listening to stories about how far our sense of responsibility can reach — regret that extends back in time, ways we stretch toward one another across distance. They wrote songs about stray dogs and beekeeping, about reconciliation and heartache, about the complicated work of figuring out where our responsibility begins and ends.
This year, we’re turning to ROOTS. Where do our values come from? What allows them to take hold and grow? What grounds us and helps us thrive?
In many ways, this month’s song feels like an origin story. Teaching artist Anne McKee wrote it with her mother, Kristin Aiello, about a moment from Anne’s childhood that neither of them has forgotten and continues to shape their lives.
The Kitchen Table
As a parent, I think a lot about teaching my children right from wrong. It can feel like heavy work — trying to raise people who are thoughtful and kind and honest. Wondering if I’m doing enough, saying the right things, modeling what matters.
But Kristin’s story reminds me of something I’m still learning: often values don’t come from being taught. They grow from direct experience, from relationships, from paying close enough attention to make up your own mind.
In her song, Kristin describes how Anne (Annie to her) loved her chickens. She named them, played with them, cradled them close. They weren’t interchangeable to her, each one distinct and cherished.
Then one evening, the family sat down to dinner. Chicken was on the menu.
“Annie went quiet,” Kristin explained. “She made the connection / eyes full of tears / just seven years old.”
Kristin saw recognition move across her daughter’s face: the chickens she loved and the chicken on her plate were the same. Through tears, Anne said, “animals want to be free/ just like you and me.”
A Thread You Follow
There’s a poem by William Stafford called “The Way It Is.” He writes about following a thread through your life — something you discover that “goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.”
I think we are lucky if we find this kind of thread, something that guides who we are and the decisions we make. Anne found one of these threads when she was only seven.
Stafford also writes:
“People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.”
That’s the vulnerable part. Once you’ve seen something clearly, you have to try to explain it — even when you’re seven years old, crying at the dinner table.
Anne had found her thread. Now she had to name it.
How would her parents respond?
“I’ll Be Your Ally”
Kristin could have downplayed the moment or redirected the conversation: “Just eat your dinner.” “Don’t worry about it.”
How many times do children try to show us what they’re seeing, and we deflect? The world is complicated. It’s not always easy to answer honestly or with your full attention.
But Kristin didn’t deflect.
She said she’d be Annie’s ally. Not “we’ll see” or “maybe someday.” But: I recognize this matters to you. I’m with you.
Then the whole family followed. “Annie showed us / a gentler way.”The entire family changed how they ate because of what a seven-year-old had seen clearly enough to name.
What Annie Showed Us
We often expect values to flow from parent to child — wisdom passed down, roots extending from one generation to the next.
Annie’s story moves the other direction.
“Annie showed us a gentler way.”
I love that this song exists at all — that decades later, Anne and Kristin sat down together to transform this memory into music. Anne is still vegetarian. That thread she found at seven, she’s never let go of. And Kristin, looking back, recognizes her choice to be an ally as one of the most important decisions she made as a parent.
The documentary songwriting process asks storytellers and teaching artists to collaborate, shaping meaning together. Here, the storyteller is the mother who chose to honor what her daughter saw, and the teaching artist is the daughter who held onto what she discovered. Both recognizing that dinner table moment as the place where something essential took root.
Stafford writes, “You don’t ever let go of the thread.”
But threads need more than discovery. They need someone else to see them and say: this matters.
That’s what Kristin gave Anne. Not the thread itself — Anne found that on her own. But the conditions that allowed it to hold, to carry through a lifetime.
I wonder what threads my own children are trying to show me. When they discover something that matters deeply to them, will I recognize it? Will I be their ally, even when it takes more of me than I expected?
We’d love to hear your own stories and reflections on the theme of ROOTS. What threads can you trace through your own life? How did some of your core experiences take roots? Share your experiences. Email Caroline at [email protected].