What I learned by listening carefully to what my granddaughter says, and to what the music she is listening to is saying to her, and to all of us.
(Our granddaughter Sage (front row, right, wearing bracelets and braids) and friends at the barricades of the 2025 Bottlerock Music Festival in Napa, California.)
TO LISTEN TO my 16-year old granddaughter Sage’s ever-evolving taste in music is to understand her, and to see the full arc of her personal and character development.
Three years ago, when Sage was 13, she and I did ukulele duets to a painfully revealing little song called “NUMB LITTLE BUG,” by Em Behold. She was going through a particularly rough patch at the time, and the lyrics of that gentle song, calmed her, much as her beautiful, searching voice did for me:
“DID YOU EVER GET A LITTLE BIT TIRED OF LIFE?
LIKE YOU’RE NOT REALLY HAPPY, BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE?
LIKE YOU’RE HANGING BY A THREAD, BUT YOU GOTTA SURVIVE…
‘CAUSE YOU GOTTA SURVIVE…”
Her intuitiveness about those powerful lyrics stunned me. How could this 13-year old know this? How could she possibly know what I was feeling when I was a teenager and made a lame-ass attempt—fortunately—at taking my own life? How could she know that, like her, I was “Hanging by a Thread” but somehow knew, that “I had to survive?”
How could she possibly know that, unless she, too, at age 13, was experiencing the same thing? The last stanza of the song always made my throat catch, hearing those profound and plaintive words, being sung by Sage’s pure, clear voice—my precious little bug with the big, soulful eyes:
“DO YOU EVER GET A LITTLE BIT TIRED OF LIFE?
LIKE YOU’RE NOT REALLY HAPPY BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE?
LIKE A NUMB LITTLE BUG THAT’S GOTTA SURVIVE, THAT’S GOTTA
SURVIVE…”
Astonishing.
But, that was only one small step along a winding, and often painful path. Struggling with some mental health issues, my Sageroo, as I called her, needed a special place to help her discover herself and her talents, and how to better integrate both into her own life, and society. Her “Golden Retriever” (relentlessly loving) father found a music and arts school in Salt Lake City, Utah, which would best fit Sage’s needs and talents.
It wasn’t an easy adjustment at first, for our “numb little bug.” On her second day in a beautiful place, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, she tried to run away, going off campus and into a surrounding neighborhood, wearing only Crocs on her freezing feet, as she trudged through the snow covering the ground in that mile-high City in late November.
She came back to the school, a former Bed & Breakfast in which she lived with about 20 other teenaged girls for the next 18-months. It took her some time to accept exactly the kind of guidance, help and education she needed, and once she did, Sage grew stronger and gained more confidence each day. And, like the “numb little bug,” she once was, she survivee, and never gave up on herself.
Sage’s musical tastes blossomed, and she discovered many more artistic muses, including a proud, all Queer, female group known as “Boy Genius”—-Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dakus and Julien Baker. She taught herself, and me, the lacerating lyrics of a song written by Phoebe entitled, “Graceland, Too.”
Listening to their music was another way of learning how Sage was growing and of listening to my eloquent granddaughter, who was teaching herself to play the guitar:
“NO LONGER A DANGER TO HERSELF OR OTHERS,
SHE MADE UP HER MIND TO LACE UP HER SHOES…”
Those opening lyrics stopped me cold.
“No longer a danger to herself or others.” Sage KNEW this was true, and had come extraordinarily far to get to this point.
“She made up her mind to lace up her shoes.”
THAT was the line that slapped me: “She made up her mind to lace up her shoes.”
There it was. My Sageroo was not only ready to survive, but to trust in herself, and embrace life—“to lace up her shoes,” —the way you do when you’re ready to go out and play, or get back in the game.
She performed that song at one of her school’s Music & Arts Festivals, her lilting voice echoing how all of us who loved her felt:
“I WOULD DO ANYTHING YOU WANT ME TO,
I WOULD ANYTHING FOR YOU…
I WOULD DO ANYTHING , I WOULD DO ANYTHING…
WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TO DO, I WILL DO.”
She was singing to us, and for us, and most importantly for herself. Not only had she found her path, but she paved some new ones—fearlessly, passionately—expressing clearly who she is as a human being, and what she believes and values most in life.
Sage, whose birth pulled her grandmother and I across country from NYC to San Francisco 16 years ago, always had her own unique voice, just like her father did as a child, and still does. Here and now, she learned how to use that gift, tutoring her friends in Math, and, by example, how to speak up for themselves, and take pride in who they are. She learned how to use that gift—her voice, her vision—to make her world better, and, in turn, to improve all of our lives.
Sage’s friends came out in waves on the day of her graduation from the program and the 10th grade this month, to movingly speak extemporaneously on her behalf, about how Sage transformed her experiences into tools to help other survive, and grow. As one of her classmates said, “She went from being the Crash Out Queen to Buddha.”
Even the great Temple Grandin saw it, when Sage’s Grammy and I serendipitously ran into her earlier this year at a hotel’s breakfast buffet just outside of Stanford University, where both of us were attending conferences. An impromptu chat about how much Dr. Grandin’s brilliant books and work in the field of Neurodiversity meant to us, turned into a full-blown breakfast for the three of us, where the conversation turned to the remarkable accomplishments of our oldest granddaughter.
“Well, what does she want to do?” Temple Grandin asked us.
We filled her in on what Sage had achieved over the last 18 months, and shared with the great Dr. Grandin Sage’s love for music, and how she was talking more about becoming a therapist, to help other people.
“Well, she can do that!” Temple Grandin insisted to us.
And, at that moment, as the great Dr. Grandin was reinforcing Sage’s ability to do just that, the lyrics to “Graceland, Too,” popped back into my head:
“SHE COULD DO ANYTHING SHE WANTS TO..
SHE COULD DO WHATEVER SHE WANTS TO DO..”
Right then and there, Carol Villano and I told Temple Grandin on that sunny morning in Palo Alto, California, that we’d always be there, standing right behind Sage, supporting her in “whatever she wants to do.”
Now, ordinarily, an endorsement from Temple Grandin would be the last thing anyone needs to say. After all, for those of us who know and love her path-breaking writings, teachings and inventions, that’s like getting an endorsement from God…
Yet, even after getting Temple’s blessing, Sage astonished us again. She discovered the music of Noah Kahan, a 28-year old singer/songwriter from the Northeast, whose first album “BUSYHEAD” came out only 6 years ago. Kahan, had experienced mental health issues, and was unafraid to write about those experiences in his songs.
He understood—much as our Sageroo has done—that by writing and communicating about his first-hand experiences, he could benefit other people—to help them through some dark days and night—to help them survive.
As his fame grew, Kahan founded “The Busyhead Project,” named after his first album, a national non-profit aimed at reducing the stigma surrounding mental health and making mental healthcare more affordable and accessible to others. In the short time of “The Busyhead Project’s” existence, it has raised $4 million and helped more than 160 community-based Mental Health Organizations.
Sage’s sweet voice sung the lyrics of Noah Kahan’s music at another Music & Arts festival, in a song explaining how Kahan helped save a friend from committing suicide. The song, entitled “Call Your Mom,” reflects the full-circle our Sageroo traveled over the past 18-months: from first refusing help; to accepting how good, caring people could make her life better; to using her own first-hand experience to help others navigate troubled waters.
But, it was another Noah Kahan song which grabbed hold of me, once I started constantly listening to his music on Spotify:
“YOUR GONNA GO FAR.”
In that song, Kahan records his bittersweet feelings for a friend leaving home, knowing that as painful as it was for him, it was the best thing for his friend. It reminded me of exactly how we felt when our Sageroo went away to school, some 600 miles away:
“SO PACK UP YOUR CAR, PUT A HAND ON YOUR HEART,
SAY WHATEVER YOU FEEL, BE WHERE EVER YOU ARE…
WE AIN’T ANGRY AT YOU LOVE…
WE’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU LOVE…
AND WE’LL ALL BE HERE FOREVER…
AND WE’LL ALL BE HERE FOREVER..
YOU’RE GONNA GOOOOOOO FAR…
YOU’RE GONNA GOOOOOOO FAR…
YES , YOU ARE (OOOOOOOH, OOOOOH).”
This past weekend at the Bottlerock Music Festival in Napa, California, Sage, along with her dad, Matt Villano, their next door neighbors The Chavez’—who are among our granddaughters’ biggest boosters—and thousands of others, sang and swayed to Noah Kahan performing his own original music which articulates so much of our lives.
A music festival pro—thanks to her father’s love of such venues—Sage seized a prime spot at “the barricades” of Bottlerock, close enough to make eye-contact with all of her favorite musicians, and to make new friends. Her instagram account is full of photos of Noah Kahan, in a glittering white suit, singing the songs SHE made famous to me.
I cannot listen to Kahan’s “You’re Gonna Go Far”, without thinking of our Sage—who has already come so far. . . and continues to astonish us, and to improve her world, as well as the lives of others.
And, just as Temple Grandin confirmed: “She can do that!”
