I sat here watching the City Council meeting and folks again talking about street lighting and burned out buildings.

Let me talk first about lighting. The street lights on Craig Street between Emmett and Stanley streets are intermittent. They need to be checked and repaired. They are steady on for about seven minutes and then they flicker and dim to nightlight level for about 3 to 4 minutes. This in one of the most dangerous areas in the city.

Now, as to burnt out houses, in June, Schenectady's Promise hosted a Photo-Vision exhibition of youth in the city who were given cameras and were told to take pictures of the city's strengths and weaknesses. The best of these were mounted and framed and hung at City Hall.

On opening night of the exhibit, there were speeches by both kids and politicians. Isaiah (a Quest kid) was one of the speakers, and he talked in particular about his friend's house, which was one of the pictures displayed that day. He spoke eloquently about the burnt out building in which his friend had lost his life and told how he had to pass that building everyday as he went to school. He went on to say that if he lived in a more prosperous neighborhood, this house would have long since been eradicated.

The mayor arrived at the podium smiling hugely and said "I'm so glad you brought that up, because I am addressing this very issue. This year, I have identified the 50 most derelict buildings in the city and have scheduled them for demolition. By this time next year, you will no longer have to walk by the empty shell that was your friend's home."

On Sunday, there was a small story in the Times Union about the rebirth of Crane Street (mislabeled Hamilton Hill instead of Mont Pleasant). Within that story, the reporter asked about those 50 houses, and the mayor replied with words about legal issues and time constraints and said the city was aiming at taking down 10 buildings instead of 50.

Later that day when I talked to the reporter, she laughed ruefully, and said "But it's almost October, I don't think this is going to happen."

Oh well, what does it matter? Isaiah is just a 12-year-old kid. But - and here's that big but - Isaiah is in the process of putting together (with the help of three other kids) a Powerpoint demonstration, with original music by Bolo (remember Bolo?), on a kid's point of view, entitled "A Youth Needs Assessment of Schenectady", and this little number is traveling to Arizona for a national conference sponsored by the National AIDS Council. So, you can lie to the youth, but really, what goes around comes around.

And again and again I am humbled by the spirit and "we can do it" attitude of so many of these children. They will go on and, with any help at all, they will overcome.

I thought about my life when I was a younger, ages 25 to 40 or so, before Quest - long before Quest - and I was making my way in the world as a composer and performer. I was a smug, bleeding heart, do-gooder liberal. I traveled to and presented my works in Ireland, Slovakia, Mexico, Bermuda, Australia and literally everywhere in the U.S.

I was a permanent artist in residence at Barnard College and they kept a small, three-apartment for me on campus. I had a space grant at the prestigious 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, Bravo Network did a 15 minute biography/documentary about my life as a musician and it was shown for years. And I thought I was hot stuff; all my work was about righting wrongs and the tilting of windmills. And did I have a clue? No, no, no!

At the age of 50, I started my real adventure, a Quest if you will. You know the search for truth, justice and the American way. The Quest became my life-defining journey and I left all my little conceits behind (at least I hope I did) and laid myself on the line and really found out I don't know much about anything after all.

So here I am, growing up at las,t and I want to be the protagonist in "Catcher in the Rye," the person who stands in a field of rye at the edge of a cliff and catches all the children before they run off the cliff.

But here's the difference: I was never much good at sports; in fact, I sucked and I am not yet ready to be so passive. Right now, I am still chasing the children as they run through these dangerous streets, trying to distract them and bribe them to leave their dangerous pursuits and come with me. It's no accident that in my younger years I wrote an updated Pied Piper and toured many schools and youth venues.

It was at one of these performances that one little girl told me she actually believed the myths and legends she saw in the movies and on TV. And I found myself hearing a room full of 8-year-old children explaining to me (who was yet another dumb adultin their eyes) that yes, of course, Superman can fly. And as I countered with logic and reason and talked of actors, and costumes and special effects, they looked at me with pity and said those dreaded words: "She just doesn't get it."

So when I talk to all these street kids, I realize that they believe they are in a movie. In other words, they are all heroes in their own movie. And when they say "I will die for my gang," they mean every word. Somehow in their minds they see their sad and miserable lives transformed by their ultimate sacrifice, their life laid down as a gift to the very streets that stole their very lives from them.

This is the truth behind the cliche, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." And they really see themselves as part of a larger scheme, the dance of the ghetto, the heroes of the hill. "We are family," they say, and this family of darkness and noise and hunger and sadness is all the family they have and will ever know. In their hearts, they never expect to grow up anyway.

And so here's my part in this Divine Comedy of errors. When I get too old and tired to run anymore, I will plant myself at the very edge of these children's world and I will become, perhaps, the only viable green thing in their sadly circumcised kingdoms (after all, they simply will not tolerate any form of greens, and they especially despise broccoli).

I will grow both roots and branches, the roots for stability and the branches to reach always for the next and the next and still the next of good and true new experiences. And the sky will be full of stars, even as the sun is always shining, and I will be the safe spot in tag and all their games and I will never let them find me gone (Being rooted in one place does have it's advantages).

And I will do the one thing I can still do from my other life, the thing I dream about all the time: I will sing. I will sing to every child who comes, a song of quietness and security. A love song to all my children, my final and eternal gift to them, a lullaby:

Go to sleep,
All my own,
I will watch you
I will love you
Peace go with you,
Always

QUEST is a community-based organization that provides a safe environment, free meals, counseling, art and recreation programs that keep Hamilton Hill children in school, out of trouble and on track for better lives. For more information on QUEST, visit www.questkids.net.