Ok. So I've never had a boyfriend. I've never really had a crush. But today...oh today...the world kinda hiccoughed when I saw this boy. Why oh why does he have to play french horn? Is this the karma of Felicia following me around or something? Em laughed so hard when I told her. I seriously didn't mean to crush on the second day of camp, but it must've been fate or something. He's beautiful. And I can't believe my morning sectional is right by his! I'm a woodwind. He's brass...it doesn't even make sense because everything is normally so separated! Well anyways, after breakfast today (they made us fried hot dog buns made into french toast!) I walked to sectionals and it was actually sunny. We all sit on this wooden bench in the woods and have to bring our fold out music stands. As I was putting mine together I looked over to see this gorgeous boy with blond hair and grey eyes. He seemed lost and walked past us. On of the girls in my sectional knew him from her school-Grand Rapids or something-and talked to him before we started. I think I am in love at first sight and I hope he doesn't have a girlfriend. At orientation they told us there's a dance this friday. I am so excited!
Greg. The french horn player. I feel sick...how do I ask him to the dance? I guess I will just see how the next few days go.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Day One: Band Camp
The poncho I brought doens't really keep the damp out, but it does the trick for repelling the relentless drizzle coming down. There are a few girls already here, and they look weird. The first girl we met told us she's a witch and I think she weighs three hundred pounds. Her name is Lydia and she has black short hair and a mole on her cheek. I am not thrilled that she picked the bunk next to ours. There's another girl named Jessica who says she's here for the entire summer because her parents are so rich they are traveling the world. Her violin is apparently two hundred years old. Em looked at me when she told us that and I felt like dying of laughter. This is going to be some party!
We went to the big ampitheatre called Stewart Shell for orientation and we had to walk through the woods to get to the main campus. All along the path there are little practice areas and theatres for performing. It's crazy to walk so far for orientation! We haven't even seen the whole campground yet! The boys are all the way on the other side and it's like a half mile walk. After orientation we had to buy our uniforms which are ugly light blue polo shirts with Blue Lake Fine Arts printed on one breast. How are we going to meet boys wearing this get up? We eat in this huge cafeteria building and it smells just like our cafeteria at school. I brought lots of granola bars just in case the food sucks. Tonight we are having a bonfire with everyone in our group of cabins. I wonder what our cabin leader will be like!
We went to the big ampitheatre called Stewart Shell for orientation and we had to walk through the woods to get to the main campus. All along the path there are little practice areas and theatres for performing. It's crazy to walk so far for orientation! We haven't even seen the whole campground yet! The boys are all the way on the other side and it's like a half mile walk. After orientation we had to buy our uniforms which are ugly light blue polo shirts with Blue Lake Fine Arts printed on one breast. How are we going to meet boys wearing this get up? We eat in this huge cafeteria building and it smells just like our cafeteria at school. I brought lots of granola bars just in case the food sucks. Tonight we are having a bonfire with everyone in our group of cabins. I wonder what our cabin leader will be like!
Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp
It's raining out today and we've been driving for a couple of hours. Blue Lake is on the west side of the state, and after looking at the map of Michigan it hits me just how far from home we'll be. At least Em will be here too. The gray sky dampens my courage though, and I think back to all the preparations we've made. Mom took me to Meijer and we went through the sample isle to get travel sized everything. Bug spray, toothpaste, contact solution, soap containers, q-tips. I have a trunk we picked up from a garage sale and it's filled to the brim with navy blue shorts, socks, pants, sweaters. Navy blue is not my color. At least we all have to wear the same thing. But two whole weeks of blue? Geez. Em's mom made her get thrift store hand me downs, so I don't feel as bad as she does, but still. Silently I watch the rain form tears rolling down the window of the suburban. The whole family is here to see me off. For a two week adventure I feel prepared for a world tour.
We pull into a long line of cars and slowly pull into the campgrounds. It takes forever. My dad can't even talk he's so choked up. I look at my map and itinerary. The tires spin a little before catching in the wet sand. The forest is green around us, dripping wet and sheltering rounds of small cabins. When we finally pull into our area I feel my nerves hit. My stomach is lurching with excitement and I can see Emily already unloading her stuff. The cabin is sparse and cold, filled with brown bunkbeds and stained striped mattresses. Good thing we are sharing a bunk and everything worked out. My mom is teary and my sister and brother are looking wide eyed at this fresh new hell. How is this ever going to be as much fun as we imagined? Spiders and dirt everywhere, nasty communal bath houses smelling foul...
My head is spinning as my dad crushes me in a bear hug and hands me some extra money. "Have a great time kiddo. We love you." My eyes are burning and I don't want to show them how scared I suddenly feel. Mom hugs me tight, rounding up the family and saying a last goodbye. I watch as the grey and black suburban pulls out into traffic and Em and I put an arm around one another. What did we get ourselves into?
We pull into a long line of cars and slowly pull into the campgrounds. It takes forever. My dad can't even talk he's so choked up. I look at my map and itinerary. The tires spin a little before catching in the wet sand. The forest is green around us, dripping wet and sheltering rounds of small cabins. When we finally pull into our area I feel my nerves hit. My stomach is lurching with excitement and I can see Emily already unloading her stuff. The cabin is sparse and cold, filled with brown bunkbeds and stained striped mattresses. Good thing we are sharing a bunk and everything worked out. My mom is teary and my sister and brother are looking wide eyed at this fresh new hell. How is this ever going to be as much fun as we imagined? Spiders and dirt everywhere, nasty communal bath houses smelling foul...
My head is spinning as my dad crushes me in a bear hug and hands me some extra money. "Have a great time kiddo. We love you." My eyes are burning and I don't want to show them how scared I suddenly feel. Mom hugs me tight, rounding up the family and saying a last goodbye. I watch as the grey and black suburban pulls out into traffic and Em and I put an arm around one another. What did we get ourselves into?
Confessions Of A Band Camp Queen
The noonday sun beats down on us standing in fron of Kmart, and we are holding our buckets out hoping for donations. Band Boosters put us up to it, but it still feels strange begging for money so we can go to band camp. I've never been away from home before and it's exciting and scary. Today feels worse, though, in orange tshirts and holding plastic containers. I wonder what will come of this. My parents told me if I wanted to go I need to raise the money myself. School has been out for a few weeks, and band camp is coming up in two months. Camp is hundreds of dollars away, and each handful of change seems miniscule compared to how much it will take for me to actually get there. My best friend Emily is looking tired, and I am not sure if it is the heat or the demoralization of this particular duty.
We watch as the minivan comes to collect us after hours of asking for donations. There are about fifty of us scattered all over town in pairs, and working in shifts. "Dude, did you see the brochure? It's gonna rule. We have to get out of here!" "I know, totally, we need to do this." "This still sucks, though." "I know."
We are getting into the van when a few kids come by talking shit. "Come on girls, get in," says Mrs. Pethoud. I notice that Felicia is in the front seat making friends with the enemy. Emily gives me a sidelong glance and I nearly choke on my laughter as we pile it. Suddenly life seems full of surprises.
We watch as the minivan comes to collect us after hours of asking for donations. There are about fifty of us scattered all over town in pairs, and working in shifts. "Dude, did you see the brochure? It's gonna rule. We have to get out of here!" "I know, totally, we need to do this." "This still sucks, though." "I know."
We are getting into the van when a few kids come by talking shit. "Come on girls, get in," says Mrs. Pethoud. I notice that Felicia is in the front seat making friends with the enemy. Emily gives me a sidelong glance and I nearly choke on my laughter as we pile it. Suddenly life seems full of surprises.
I want to be first chair!
Challenge time. I need it. I am better than he is and I know it. But I feel sick today, knowing we are doing challenges in front of the whole class. Just to be fair, we have to play in Mr. Pethoud's office out of sight. He randomly picks us and then we play and the band votes. I hope they pick me.
My Black Beaked Companion
Playing music is easy on guitar; I have been doing it for years. This new creature in my hands is a missile erupting in the most ear wrenching screams every time I put my lips to it. I fold my lower lip over my teeth and close my trembling lips around the mouthpiece with effort. It is like a shaking leg after gym class; I have a hard time sustaining my ambeture. Somehow I made it further than the other kids and wound up in second chair anyways. Felicia is in clear view now more than before. Her french horn is like farts underwater as far as I am concerned, but my proximity to Mr. Pethoud is like her kryptonite. I don't see the attraction personally, and look at his red rimmed eyes with a certain scrutiny that never once uncovers what she so desires. He has thinning blond hair, an invisible body, strange worn brown loafers that I feel sure stink when he takes them off, and a pallor not unlike a sick person. Still, he commands attention and we try so hard to please him when he asked us to perform. He also plays french horn as his primary instrument, and I wonder if she chose it on purpose just to be close to him. He is married, after all, and at least twenty five years older than us.
Band is like a family, a club that no one on the outside wants to belong to but it is only because they have no idea what we are. They have no place of comfort like this, no comraderie, no common goal. Our beauty is in how we all don't fit anywhere but fit inside this room. We fit inside music, and it is something so strong that it captures most of us for life. Let them make fun, for they have no idea the fun we really have. I feel like it is my armor, my shield from the mean girls and the bland teachers working off of crepey yellowing notes. I wear my scarlet letter in my hot little hand: my black clarinet case brandished by my side, parting the seas of pubescent cruelty.
Band is like a family, a club that no one on the outside wants to belong to but it is only because they have no idea what we are. They have no place of comfort like this, no comraderie, no common goal. Our beauty is in how we all don't fit anywhere but fit inside this room. We fit inside music, and it is something so strong that it captures most of us for life. Let them make fun, for they have no idea the fun we really have. I feel like it is my armor, my shield from the mean girls and the bland teachers working off of crepey yellowing notes. I wear my scarlet letter in my hot little hand: my black clarinet case brandished by my side, parting the seas of pubescent cruelty.
Eating Lunch In the Band Room
It physically hurt, their judgements like daggers bore into every pore of my body. I turned my paperbag lunch in toward my thigh, so no one could see my name and the heart mom had scrawled on the outside. I walked invisibly, hoping no one would see how lost I felt. The cool steel of the door gave way and I was enveloped in silence. The stairwell felt good and I left the cackle of lunchroom behind. Just beyond the cafeteria was the bandroom and I went inside slowly. Felicia was in Mr. Pethoud's office, leaning agaist his desk. As I stood in the frame they both looked up and he said, "Oh, hi Steph. Want to eat lunch with us?". I felt like I was interupting, but continued standing there with a half smile. "Yeah, that'd be cool."
Felicia looked at me like it was definitely not cool. Her disdain was nothing compared to the lunchroom, so I squatted on the floor and started eating half a warm peanut butter sandwich. They turned the conversation to include all of us, and I felt a bit more at ease. Still, I felt somehow alien anyways and made an excuse to use the ladies room soon after wolfing down my soggy sandwich.
A few hours later I showed up for class and found her gaze meeting mine from the french horn section. We were faced in a horsehoe configuration, me in the front inside circle and her in the back opposite. I felt an unspoken warning hit me in that short gaze and took note. The next week I ate lunch with a bunch of misfits somewhere in the middle of the cafeteria and steered clear of her time at lunch. Mr. Pethoud thumped his foot on the podium and raised his baton. We all snapped to pay attention and his white baton held still in the air. With a downward swoop he began, and we tried our best to follow him along with the foreign language on the page. It was such a challenge.
Felicia looked at me like it was definitely not cool. Her disdain was nothing compared to the lunchroom, so I squatted on the floor and started eating half a warm peanut butter sandwich. They turned the conversation to include all of us, and I felt a bit more at ease. Still, I felt somehow alien anyways and made an excuse to use the ladies room soon after wolfing down my soggy sandwich.
A few hours later I showed up for class and found her gaze meeting mine from the french horn section. We were faced in a horsehoe configuration, me in the front inside circle and her in the back opposite. I felt an unspoken warning hit me in that short gaze and took note. The next week I ate lunch with a bunch of misfits somewhere in the middle of the cafeteria and steered clear of her time at lunch. Mr. Pethoud thumped his foot on the podium and raised his baton. We all snapped to pay attention and his white baton held still in the air. With a downward swoop he began, and we tried our best to follow him along with the foreign language on the page. It was such a challenge.
When It Began
Hornung Elementary School: Mrs. Winklepleck's Class 1982
I was in first grade the first time I heard it. We filed in lines, neatly sitting on the dusty gymnasium floor indian style, waiting expectantly. It was a moment frozen in my brain, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. They came in the hundreds, marching to a thunderous cacophony all covered in orange and black polyester with feather plumed hats. I felt the chills racing through my small limbs, every hair on my arms and neck standing at attention. They faced us, standing proudly and a wall of sound hit all of us as their feet marched in time to the white gloves conducting. I wasn't sure which sound came from what instrument, but I knew in my deepest chambers that I had to belong to them one day, and that somehow I already did. I guess it was at a young age when I first recognized my own kind.
No one had to push me into music. I simply needed to make it to middle school so I could join the band. My grandpa used to play Benny Goodman and he'd dance the Charleston with my Grams in the kitchen. I loved it so much that he made me a handful of mixed tapes from the 1940's, and from them I learned to adore the clarinet. That clean, strong, reedy sound that wove itself through the brass and drums; that star shining just a bit more brightly for my ears; that solo that drove out of "Begin th Beguine" and flowered in my heart.
The first days of middle school are muddled now, but I remember clearly being lost. I gripped a sweaty hand around my backpack and walked with trepidation through brilliantly painted orange doors. I fumbled with my locker combination and wondered where my first class was located. The day was long, and when lunch came I didn't know where to sit or with whom. It didn't take long for the hierarchy to form, and I certainly fell below the cool table but above the kids playing magic cards with glasses. My teeth felt sheathed in iron; I wondered when my braces would come off. It seemed like forever. Then seventh hour came around and I was safe. The stale smell of spit and dirty middleschool carpet rose out of nowhere. Rows of lost kids like myself were squeaking and squawking on foreign objects. The flourescent lights flickered overhead, and our band director took a deep inhale. It was a sound that I would learn to listen for for many years to come.
I was in first grade the first time I heard it. We filed in lines, neatly sitting on the dusty gymnasium floor indian style, waiting expectantly. It was a moment frozen in my brain, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. They came in the hundreds, marching to a thunderous cacophony all covered in orange and black polyester with feather plumed hats. I felt the chills racing through my small limbs, every hair on my arms and neck standing at attention. They faced us, standing proudly and a wall of sound hit all of us as their feet marched in time to the white gloves conducting. I wasn't sure which sound came from what instrument, but I knew in my deepest chambers that I had to belong to them one day, and that somehow I already did. I guess it was at a young age when I first recognized my own kind.
No one had to push me into music. I simply needed to make it to middle school so I could join the band. My grandpa used to play Benny Goodman and he'd dance the Charleston with my Grams in the kitchen. I loved it so much that he made me a handful of mixed tapes from the 1940's, and from them I learned to adore the clarinet. That clean, strong, reedy sound that wove itself through the brass and drums; that star shining just a bit more brightly for my ears; that solo that drove out of "Begin th Beguine" and flowered in my heart.
The first days of middle school are muddled now, but I remember clearly being lost. I gripped a sweaty hand around my backpack and walked with trepidation through brilliantly painted orange doors. I fumbled with my locker combination and wondered where my first class was located. The day was long, and when lunch came I didn't know where to sit or with whom. It didn't take long for the hierarchy to form, and I certainly fell below the cool table but above the kids playing magic cards with glasses. My teeth felt sheathed in iron; I wondered when my braces would come off. It seemed like forever. Then seventh hour came around and I was safe. The stale smell of spit and dirty middleschool carpet rose out of nowhere. Rows of lost kids like myself were squeaking and squawking on foreign objects. The flourescent lights flickered overhead, and our band director took a deep inhale. It was a sound that I would learn to listen for for many years to come.
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