Steph is going to audition for a part in Cinderella. She has been taking private lessons from a voice coach.

Rhea, her teacher, is young and friendly. We watched her give her recital when she graduated as a music major in opera. She stood alone on stage with only a piano in the corner for accompaniment. She sang in German, French, Italian and I believe, Swahili. So we know who we are getting for our daughter.

Rhea is gracious to give Stephanie extra lessons as we get close to audition time. Steph is going against people who have been in lessons since they were three. I hope she gets her part. She is working for it. If she does not, I hope she gets something. She really wants to learn this business.

We are also preparing for the turn-over of our new business on Sept 1. Steph will not be the main person in the store as I thought would be the case. She needs to be writing and sleeping. The people we are buying the business from are sharing their knowledge with us, so we are blessed. But Steph is misunderstood, or we are. She comes in late after writing all night and sleeping too much. So she is in trouble for wasting her time and we are in trouble for allowing it.

But again, how can we judge someone else’s journey if we don’t even know where that person is headed? The air shop business is not the end; it is the means to an end. The purpose of it is to create resources for us to follow up on our collective artistic promise. So Steph will NOT stop writing in order to become a scuba air tank filler. She fills air tanks so she can write and get voice lessons and fancy musical equipment and sleep all day if she wrote all night. If she writes 1000 words per day for 10 years, she WILL be a writer.

And we continue.